


three nights

by ylang



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, F/F, Non-Explicit Sex, One Night Stands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-01-29 18:00:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 31,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21414313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ylang/pseuds/ylang
Summary: three nights, three weddings(title and chapter titles from 3 nights by dominic fike)
Relationships: Lindsey Horan/Emily Sonnett
Comments: 59
Kudos: 159





	1. seems like you can use a little company from me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why does my gay ass always think of fic ideas w numbers in them

Emily hates weddings. 

Forget about the ceremony. Emily’s been single to enough weddings to be able to deal with the selfish sadness of someone else finding joy. Mostly.

It’s the wedding _parties_ that get her, parties of hundreds of people you never wanted to talk to outside of Facebook. Aunts, uncles, creepy cousins, high school friends and their dates (which Emily currently has none of).

Actually, now that she thinks of it, that isn't true. She loves parties. She’s good at them, good at being able to flit around and soak up the attention, good at casual small talk and first impressions. She just hates big parties. You can’t get in as many jokes there, unless you really want to grab people’s attention, which Emily currently does _ not _want to do.

The wedding is surprisingly big. She can tell because she was invited.

She expected Tobin and Christen to plan something small of about ten or so people, maybe even elope. Emily’s sure that if it was up to Tobin, she’d have them get married alone at City Hall on one random weekday while wearing “dress” shorts and sneakers that would somehow manage to cost more than if they had planned a whole ceremony. It looks like she and Christen reached a compromise; no shorts were worn, thank God, but Tobin was allowed to wear sneakers. 

Christen most likely, and thankfully, had the most influence in the wedding planning. It’s classy. The food is vegan and vegetarian friendly, the venue is not some seedy bar, and the music is tasteful. It’s not Emily’s style, though, which is why she’s not dancing, but instead sitting awkwardly on the sidelines. It is the only reason why she's not dancing.

Kelley and Mal, the only two people she really kept up with, were supposed to be her wingmen for this thing. But both are currently tearing it up on the floor with their significant others, something Emily does not have. 

She hates weddings.

She hates not having kept up with most of the people here. She hates having to make small talk with people she won a World Cup with, and with people she’s played with for years. No offense to Tobin and Christen, who were very nice to invite her, but she hates this wedding.

She’s just about to head over to get another beer, hopefully to drink her problems away, until she bumps into some asshole who’s backing up while laughing with her friends and spills her own drink on Emily.

It’s some sort of sweet smelling drink, and it manages to stain her light blue dress. The mysterious liquid is, unluckily, orange. Emily doesn’t think she’s ever drank an orange drink besides orange juice. She doesn't think that the mysterious liquid is orange juice.

“Jesus, are you serious?” Emily exclaims, until she squints and sees a face. A very sorry face. A very familiar face. A face with blue eyes and blonde hair that's been done up in gentle waves.

“Lindsey?”

Oh yeah. Lindsey was invited to this thing. Of course Lindsey was invited to this _ thing, _ aka. the wedding of two of her close friends, one of which has been her mentor and big sister for years. She deserves to be at this _thing _more than Emily. She’s even one of the bridesmaids, in their red dresses. The shade of red looks a bit like the stain on Emily’s dress.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry, Sonnett!” Lindsey says, “Here, let me help you.” She grabs a random cloth napkin from a table and starts to wipe, but it only ends up spreading the stain more.

“Shit,” Lindsey mutters under her breath. “This is not where I thought I’d see you again.”

Oh yeah, and they haven’t really talked face to face in years.

Emily steps back, and says, “Look, it’s okay, I don’t even like this dress very much anyways. Always reminded me of a baby bib, what with the color and-“

“No, I feel horrible. I have a jacket you can borrow, if you come with me to the coat closet I can give it to you. Maybe we can even catch up a little,” Lindsey says, cutting Emily off from rambling for too long. Emily feels her face heat up for no reason. It might be the large amounts of alcohol she’s been drinking just hitting her now.

Which is definitely the only reason why she says yes to Lindsey, and lets her guide the way through the crowd of people. There’s too many people in the crowd that she recognizes, and she’s overwhelmed by the need to smile and wave to everyone, like _ she’s _ the one who got married. Lindsey just forges a path through, not stopping for anyone. 

It’s sort of similar to that goal she had in the NWSL championship, the one where afterwards she leaped into the air and rushed over to hug everyone. Emily misses that.

They reach the coat closet, jammed with some very nice coats. Emily wishes she brought one. She didn't think that she needed one. Lindsey rummages around and pulls out, to Emily’s surprise, a bag. She then pulls out a sweatshirt from it. 

“A sweatshirt? That’s your so-called jacket, a freaking sweatshirt?” Emily says incredulously.

“It’s not like I was gonna wear it at the ceremony! It was just to keep me warm!” Lindsey laughs. It makes Emily even more flustered.

“Yeah, but _ I’m _going to wear it over a fucking dress!” That causes Lindsey to lose it, doubled over, her laughter echoing throughout the empty area. Emily can’t help but smile a little, despite her sweatshirt predicament.

Lindsey manages to get out through deep breaths, “Look, there are many people out there that could’ve probably worn that exact sweatshirt to this wedding-”

“But they aren’t, aren’t they?”

Lindsey shushes her and continues, trying to hold back a smile, “Tobin herself almost wore those awful shorts. This is not that bad.”

Emily makes a non-committal grumble. Lindsey rolls her eyes and giggles. She shoves the sweatshirt into Emily’s arms, “Just put on the stupid sweatshirt.”

Emily, despite her better judgement, pulls it over her head. It smells like Lindsey. “This sucks. If I had known that this was going to be a sweatshirt, I would never have followed you,” she says, muffled through the fabric as she struggles to pull it down completely.

“I can’t hear you,” Lindsey laughs, helping Emily tug it down gently, until finally Emily’s head pops out and she’s face to face with Lindsey, who’s smiling. Emily is suddenly reminded that she has dimples.

Emily mumbles, looking off to the side, “It’s this big head of mine. Can’t fit through anything.”

“You should get that checked out. I know a guy, he can suck all the air right out of it,” Lindsey says.

“Shut up,” Emily laughs. She winces at the horrible comeback. Normally, she would think of a better one, but right now she’s overwhelmed by how seamlessly they talk, almost picking back up right where they left off.

Lindsey says, “Give me a spin, I want to see the full effect.” She has a shit-eating grin on her face, but Emily spins slowly for her anyways for some reason, and rolls her eyes when Lindsey claps and whistles. She takes an overdramatic bow.

“At least it has an Adidas logo on it. Can’t be caught not repping the brand,” Emily says sarcastically.

“Exactly. Just tell everyone that you have to wear it because Adidas told you to.”

“You know what they should make? Adidas wedding attire. We should reach out to them and tell them to make some. Maybe next time I won’t have to wear your sweatshirt, and instead a very classy jacket that says Adidas in big letters on the back.”

Lindsey pinches her temple and shakes her head, but she’s giggling. Emily feels a sense of pride bloom slowly in her chest. It feels kind of like going back home after a long time and just feeling your bones settle within you.

She’s now able to take a good long look at Lindsey, without the whole stain thing, without the sweatshirt thing, and without the usual professional soccer league game thing. She looks a little different. A little older, a little more open. Her hair is different now, just a touch shorter, coming down to an inch below her shoulders. She still towers over Emily in her heels, though.

Emily doesn’t know why Lindsey’s height would ever change. That’s stupid.

“So, how’s Atlanta?” Lindsey asks, drawing out the ‘o’ in so. Emily hates this part. Where the years start to catch up and the small talk starts.

“It’s good. It’s been good,” she says, nonchalantly. She’s not wrong. It has been good. She gets to spend time with her parents, with Emma, gets to play with Kelley and Mal, gets to play for the city she grew up in. It’s been great, even. “How’s Portland? Same old, same old?”

“Yeah, I guess. It’s been okay.”

"Don’t give me that. Oh, it’s been _ okay _ . Yeah, it’s been _ fine, _ ” Emily mocks, “Winning the championship _ and _the World Cup in the same year? C’mon, please brag a little, Linds.” The nickname just slips out along with the big word vomit, and Emily doesn’t know whether it was the right move or not because Lindsey just looks at her, without saying a word.

It might be pity, Emily thinks. That’s what she got when she was told about the draft, when the World Cup roster dropped, when they won and got that fifth star and Emily’s family looked at her the way she hates throughout the celebrations. Emily doesn’t feel bad about it. Only unless she’s feeling really sad and lonely. But otherwise, it’s not bad. It’s not _that_ bad.

But then a smile breaks out on Lindsey’s face and laughter erupts, and suddenly Emily’s laughing along. They’ve reached the party again, and when the noise comes back and envelops them, it feels like everyone else is laughing with them too. 

“Okay, fine,” Lindsey says, “It’s great. It’s different. You know, new players, what with Sinc and you gone and so many other people. But it’s great.” She thinks for a second and then adds with a smirk, “Getting ready to win the championship again this season.”

Emily ignores the little jump her heart does with ‘and you gone’.

“Not unless we kick your asses. My team is ready, captain Horan.”

“Captain Horan? That’s new, captain Sonnett. Finally putting the Great Horan to rest?”

“Oh, that’ll never happen.”

“Wow, I really got my hopes up there,” Lindsey dryly jokes, a smile tugging at the ends of her lips, hints of dimples in her cheeks. Emily can only smile back.

“Hey, not that I don’t love just following you blindly, but where are we going?” Emily asks, just realizing that she’s walking somewhere.

“We’re dancing.”

“What?”

“We’re going to dance,” Lindsey says plainly.

“Like, dance? Where? Here?”

“No, we’re going to ditch this wedding and go to a club. Yes, here!”

“Why?”

“_Why? _ Because Son, you’ve been sad and lonely this whole wedding looking like a loser off to the side and I’m doing something about it and bringing you to our friends and then we’re going have fun because apparently you forgot how to do that in Atlanta.”

Emily curses herself in her mind for looking that pathetic. It's embarrassing, being that obvious.

“You, uh, noticed?” she asks, tugging at the hem of the sweatshirt.

“Uh, yeah,” Lindsey says, a bit distracted, waving to a group of people on the edge. “Anyways, here’s Rose and Cait and Ellie. Remember them?”

“Ha ha, very funny Linds, yes I do. Hey guys, long time no see-“ Emily starts, until she’s tackled with hugs by Caitlin and Ellie and Rose. She freezes up at first, but then returns the hug with a strong pat on the back for good measure. Lindsey joins in, hugging Emily from behind. It's nice. Better than the cold hugs Emily's been giving to people all night long.

Once they pull apart, Rose laughs, “Sonnett, I love your sweatshirt. Real nice of you to dress up.”

“Shut up, it’s Lindsey’s. She practically forced me to wear it.”

“Wow, you’re already wearing each other’s clothes? What, it’s been like ten minutes?” Caitlin snarks quietly, snickering to Ellie.

Now, it’s Lindsey’s turn to say, a bit flustered, “Shut up.” 

“Anyways,” Emily cuts in, “How are y’all? I feel like I haven’t seen any of you in forever, honestly.”

“Yeah, because you never want to get together when we play you! It’s not our fault!” Caitlin says.

Before Emily can get a word in, Ellie says, "You're always like, 'I'm busy' or whatever. Busy with what? We know you don't do anything." She points to Lindsey, “Do you know how much this one-“

Lindsey interjects, “Girls, chit chat later. C’mon, let’s go dance.”

Rose yells, “Let’s dance!” like a battle cry, and before Emily knows it, she’s pulled into the throng by Lindsey’s strong hands.

—-

Emily’s drunk. She feels freed almost. She feels stupid for ever feeling bad about this wedding. She reminds herself to apologize to Tobin and Christen. To apologize to Lindsey, who is dancing beside her.

“Hey,” Emily finds herself saying, turning to face Lindsey with a smile on her face.

“Hey,” Lindsey responds.

And it’s only because of the alcohol coursing through her veins that Emily can say something that she never even said to herself. She whispers, “Missed you.”

Lindsey leans in and whispers back, close to Emily’s ear, “Me too.”

Suddenly Emily feels like she’s on fire, and she tells Lindsey so, “It’s so fucking hot. I’m sweating, like, so much on your sweatshirt, I'm gonna take it off.”

“No, don’t. Like my sweatshirt on you. Looks good,” Lindsey mumbles softly. Emily nods and tries to ignore the pull in her stomach. She’s not sure what it is; she’s definitely not drunk enough to throw up and stain her dress a second time. 

It’s so hot, it’s almost suffocating. Lindsey’s body close to hers isn’t helping, but Emily doesn’t want to tell her that. 

“Hey,” she says instead.

“Hey,” Lindsey repeats, mimicking Emily and laughing at herself. 

She blurts out, “I’m gonna take off your sweatshirt. It’s gross. I’m gonna put it back in your bag.”

Lindsey puts a hand on Emily’s arm, “Wait, I’ll go with you.” Emily feels so much warmer. Lindsey’s hands must be really warm, she thinks.

They push their way through the crowd, and go back to the closet. It’s cooler now, quieter. Emily starts to take off the sweatshirt, but struggles to get it completely off, clumsily fumbling with the sleeves and collar.

“Fuck, I can’t take it off, it’s my big ass head again,” Emily says through the sweatshirt. “Can you help?”

“Yeah,” Lindsey says. “Hands up you’re under arrest!” She giggles a bit at that.

“What?” 

“Arms up, I mean. Arms up.” Lindsey gently lifts up Emily’s arms for her and peels the sweatshirt off, pulling it from Emily’s head. Once Emily’s vision isn’t blocked by the cloth of the sweatshirt, she looks up and sees Lindsey’s blue eyes, wide open. Lindsey’s mouth is slightly parted, blowing hot air onto Emily’s face.

“Hey,” Emily says breathlessly. She’s suddenly aware of how sweaty she is.

Lindsey takes a small step forward, even though there’s not much space left to cover. “Hey.”

Emily doesn’t think and in the blink of an eye, she's reaching up and kissing Lindsey. She does it with force, but can’t push Lindsey back. Lindsey is steady. Lindsey is kissing back. Lindsey is hot, her body warmth spreading to Emily as Lindsey instead pushes Emily back against a wall. 

Lindsey takes up all of her senses. She feels Lindsey’s hands on her face and body pressing her own. She smells Lindsey’s perfume, it’s lightly fragrant and for some reason, so Lindsey. She can taste the alcohol on Lindsey’s lips; it’s sweet and slightly sticky and _ intoxicating _. 

If Emily had more ability to think properly, she would be consumed by the fact that they’re kissing, and all of the more practical matters. That they just saw each other after years and they’re kissing_ . _ That this is their first kiss, that they used to come close, that now, at Tobin and Christen’s wedding of all places, they’re _ kissing. _

Lindsey kisses like Emily thought she would. Slightly rough and possessive, smoothed over by something gentle. Not that Emily thought about it a lot. But Lindsey bites the bottom of Emily’s lips and then Emily melts into Lindsey, a noise bubbling up at the back of her throat. 

They pull apart at that, breathless. And then Emily finally sees Lindsey, pupils blown out, lips and cheeks reddened.

Lindsey starts, stuttering, “Do you wanna, you know. Do you wanna-”

“Get out of here?” Emily finishes.

“Yeah,” Lindsey nods.

It’s embarrassing that Emily doesn’t hesitate before she says, “Okay.”

—-

Lindsey apartment looks almost the same after all these years. Emily doesn’t know why that’s her first thought when they burst through the door with Lindsey kissing her neck. 

Emily is walking backwards, and it’s jarring she knows exactly where to go. It’s a little hard to focus with Lindsey all over her, but she can navigate it almost as good as she used to. But then she bumps into a wall that she forgot was there, and it gives Lindsey the chance to press her up against it. 

Emily doesn’t know how to feel about Lindsey’s persistence. She doesn’t know what to feel about her own desperation, deep in her stomach. She thinks she likes it. She’s not thinking too hard right now.

They tried to leave the party as discreetly as possible. They’re drunk, everyone else was drunk and still raging, it wasn’t too hard to escape without too much suspicion. The only people who would probably remember, Tobin and Christen, where nowhere to be found. Emily left first, saying her goodbyes and thank you’s to people who she’s made peace with the fact that she’ll never be as close to them as she used to. They gave her hugs, and promises of keeping in touch, but Emily knows that it’s not likely that they’ll keep up with that.

Like Lindsey. They made promises to stay just as close. Spoiler alert: they didn’t. Emily made peace with that the second month of not playing on the same team. 

(This is just a one time thing. It doesn’t mean that she and Lindsey will suddenly start talking again. If anything, it means that they _ won’t _talk at all after. And Emily is fine with that. She has been for two years now. She was fine with them not being as close as Emily wanted for years. That was a one time thing too. Emily shut that down almost immediately after she left Portland.)

But then, Lindsey bites a particular spot, and Emily forgets where she is and what has happened in the past. She’s just thinking about how hot it is in the apartment, about how hot Lindsey is. She fumbles with the zipper on the back of Lindsey’s dress. Lindsey pulls away to unzip it herself, and Emily takes the chance to flip their positions. She has to go on her tiptoes now that she is without her heels to reach Lindsey, who hasn’t taken off her own yet. 

With their new position, Lindsey unzips Emily’s dress for her, and sneaks her hands under the fabric to roam Emily’s back. They’re so warm, it feels like her back is on fire. 

Lindsey slots her thigh in between Emily’s legs, and then someplace more pressing feels like it’s on fire as well.

“Fuck, Linds,” Emily breathes out. Lindsey, the asshole that she is, just smirks. It ignites something in Emily, and she pulls Lindsey down to the couch, now at an easier place of access. Emily’s legs were starting to burn from having to go on her tiptoes.

Lindsey sits down pressed against the back of the couch, and Emily straddles her legs. She’s struck by how it’s a new couch, different from the one she and Lindsey used to watch reruns of the same shows and games on. Good, she thinks. It would’ve distracted her too much if it was the same couch.

Lindsey places one hand on Emily’s waist and one hand on Emily’s thigh, snaking up and under the hem of her dress. Emily’s breath catches and she looks down and Lindsey’s hand, large and splayed out and warm. Her nails are painted white. Out of the corner of her eye, she spots the stain from Lindsey’s drink. That feels like ages ago.

She looks back up and into Lindsey’s eyes. Lindsey is staring back at her with such intensity, it makes Emily want to look away. Almost. 

“You sure you wanna do this?” Lindsey asks breathily.

Emily has never been as sure of anything in her entire life.

To answer her, Emily drapes herself over Lindsey's body and kisses Lindsey feverishly, moving down to her jaw, then to below her ear, and then to her neck and collar bone, where she sucks a bruise. When she bites Lindsey’s skin in a particularly sensitive part, Lindsey makes a small airy noise, and Emily can’t think about anything else but to have Lindsey make that again.

Lindsey says, “Em, love this, but I need an answer.” Her voice is deep, and Emily can feel the rumbling vibrations. 

Emily leans her head up, resting her chin on Lindsey’s chest, which is rising and falling fast. She smiles and says, “Yeah.”

Lindsey kisses her in return, and it’s sweeter than it should be. It’s soft, intimate almost. 

She suddenly lifts Emily up by her legs, and carries her to her bedroom. Emily clings onto Lindsey like a raft. She is then lain down gently on the bed, and Emily can only state while leaning back against the pillows, out of breath, as Lindsey takes off her shoes, finally, and then her dress. 

Emily’s seen her in just her underwear before. They've been in countless locker rooms together, it should feel normal. But it seems that after two years, she’s forgotten how beautiful Lindsey looks. She roams Lindsey’s body, her hair, the expanse of her back, the curves of her hips, her arm muscles, like she’ll forget again in a couple of minutes. It leaves Emily speechless. 

“Like what you see?” Lindsey jokes, but it’s not meant to be a joke for Emily to respond to, in their typical banter. It’s bashful almost; Lindsey’s blushing and it might not just be because of the alcohol. 

Lindsey clambers onto the bed, and reaches for Emily’s dress. Emily lifts her arms, and Lindsey lifts it off of her. Emily would make a joke about how it’s the second time, if she wasn’t so consumed by her want for Lindsey to just get to it already that it impedes her ability for words. Lindsey, instead, takes her time inspecting the stain on Emily’s dress, much to Emily's frustration. Emily's too drunk to be self conscious about that.

“Sorry ‘bout the stain. I mean it.” And even though Emily is desperate to continue, Lindsey is looking at her with such softness and guilt that Emily can stand to wait. For just a little bit.

“S’okay,” Emily murmurs. Lindsey beams at her, and Emily can tell that she means it too.

Then Emily surges to kiss her firmly like she'll forget what it feels, like she has to go in a couple of second. Like she means it. Because she does.

—-

Emily wakes up in a familiar bed, in a familiar apartment. The same sunlight streaming through the same shades, the same birds chirping outside of the window. For a moment, Emily goes back to sleep, stretching out her legs a bit and turning to her other side. She finds herself face to face with Lindsey. A naked Lindsey. 

Emily, in a panic, quickly reaches to check the clock on the bedside table, the bright light shining directly in her eyes. She’s reminded that she has a massive headache. She’s also reminded that she has a plane to catch in about 4 hours and that she needs to go back to her hotel and grab her stuff, maybe shower if she has time. She feels gross. 

She hurriedly starts to get up and pick up her clothes from the floor. There’s not many of them, just her underwear and her dress, strewn across Lindsey's room. As she picks up the dress, she sees the massive orange stain. She curses. She’s going to have to do the walk of shame in a stained formal dress. 

It’s at that when Lindsey seems to hear her and finally wakes up, stretching out and groaning. 

“G’mornin’,” Emily can hear Lindsey mumble. 

“Good morning,” Emily says, but it comes out weird and choked.

Lindsey sits up slowly and squints her eyes at the sunlight. “Ugh, I need Advil.”

“Yeah,” Emily barks out, half laugh, half actual words.

“Are you, uh, going?” Lindsey looks a little disappointed. Emily thinks that it must be just the effects of waking up. The sunlight makes Lindsey all squinty eyed. She's probably too tired and hungover to have actual emotional processes.

“Yeah, sorry. I have a plane to catch. You can go back to bed if you want.”

“No wait, how long do you have? If you give me a few, I can go and grab coffee and breakfast with you.”

Emily starts to protest, “No, it’s okay-“

“I know that we just, you know,” Lindsey gestures wildly. Emily’s mouth suddenly feels incredibly dry. “But it doesn’t have to be awkward. Friends hook up all the time. We can go and say a proper goodbye.”

Emily wants desperately to tell Lindsey that she’s wrong. That actual working friends with benefits only exist in the movies and romance novels. That they’re not even really friends anymore. That she didn’t mean to get drunk and hook up with Lindsey the first night that they see each other. That she didn't mean whatever she did last night.

(She might've meant it in a different time. But they're here now. And Emily has to leave.)

“I can get you an Uber to your apartment,” Lindsey offers hopefully, not even realizing her mistake.

“Hotel.”

“Right, sorry. Hotel.”

Lindsey is so earnest, Emily feels bad about how bad she feels about this. Her heart aches for some weird reason.

“Linds, it’s okay, I swear. I used to live here, remember?” 

Lindsey sighs resignedly, “Yeah. I know.”

Emily’s just standing there in the doorway when Lindsey starts to get up. For a moment, she forgets that she’s completely naked, but then scrambles to take the blanket with her as she exits the room. Emily doesn’t know why she bothered, seeing as they had sex and all, but when she thinks about it more she realizes that she would’ve done the same. She realizes that she doesn't even remember what Lindsey looks like naked.

Lindsey comes back with a familiar sweatshirt, the same one she gave Emily the night before. It looks rumpled, but Emily doesn't expect Lindsey to give her one of her nice ones. After all, Emily probably sweated like a pig on it, so she's really just doing Lindsey a favor.

Emily realizes that everything is too familiar about this. The way Emily is offered a sweatshirt of Lindsey's. The way Lindsey walks, still a bit sleepy, a lazy shuffle of the feet. The way streets below look, almost empty, people still waking up just like them. The way she herself wakes up in Lindsey’s apartment, fuzzy and regretful after getting too close.

(Of course, before, the ‘getting too close’ wasn’t hooking up. So that’s new. Aside from the couch. She can't remember if she noticed it before. She can't remember much. Weirdly, she wants to remember more.)

Emily takes the sweatshirt and puts it on, admittedly a bit thankful to have a little protection from the Portland morning cold. She picks up her purse, haphazardly discarded on the floor by the doorway, and starts to put on her shoes, which are just as haphazardly discarded, even though her feet ache from last night. 

She looks up and sees Lindsey, watching patiently, wrapped up in her stupid blanket. Emily knows that she needs to think of how to say goodbye, and quick. A proper one, like Lindsey wanted. She doesn’t remember how she did it last time.

After she's put on her shoes, she finally settles on, “See you around, Lindsey.” Lindsey’s full first name feels foreign in her mouth, too long and awkward. She gives her a thumbs up. Lindsey doesn’t return it, she instead waves listlessly, a hint of a smile on her face. There's still dimples in her cheeks, no matter how small the smile is.

Emily walks backwards to the doorway. In fact, she doesn’t turn her back to Lindsey until the door to Lindsey’s apartment is completely closed. And then she leans on it for a second, closing her eyes, preparing herself. She presses the elevator button that always takes a second push to light up, and leaves the building into the street she used to walk almost every day.

She’s going to go back home, she tells herself. She's going to go back to whatever her life was before last night. It’s funny, it doesn’t seem like she means it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the sort of tease, i cannot write smut so i did yall a favor
> 
> was this me making t and c's wedding big and ooc for the sake of plot? yes, and what abt it
> 
> also i swear im working on my other fic. i promise. its just very hard to write endings lmao


	2. call me what you want

“Kel, I’m telling you, you cannot put me at the same table as Lindsey Horan.”

“Son, chill. It’s not that bad.”

Emily grips the steering wheel a little tighter, “It’s pretty bad! Have you ever seen whenever we talk after games?”

Kelley laughs, “Oh yeah, I forgot about that. You freeze up and say, like, a million ‘um’s a second,” When Emily pouts at that, Kelley continues, “You know, that’s one of the only reasons I’m glad I’m retired now. Never have to see that again.”

“God, I can’t believe you’re _ retired _. You’re such an old lady now, retired, getting married. Have to start calling you Mrs. Kelley.”

“I am young at heart!”

“Oh, I know,” Emily says as she calmly takes a sip from the coffee they had gotten together just before. 

“Hey, I’m not the one throwing a temper tantrum about a table arrangement. If you didn’t want this you shouldn’t have hooked up with her. And then hooked up again. And again-”

Emily gasps in mock offense, “Okay, that’s enough.”

“I still can’t believe you have that sweatshirt she gave you, even after the what, ten times you’ve-”

Emily sputters in surprise, almost spitting out the sip of coffee she had just taken. She’s scared that she’s going to veer off the road with just how violently she coughs.

“It was only four times!” she yells. And then after a small breath, in a quieter voice, she says, “And I just never bring it with me-”

“What about that time here, in Atlanta? You brought it, I know you did.”

“It was too weird to give it to her.”

“Bullshit. I bet you want to keep it. I bet you secretly wear it,” Kelley says, grinning.

“I do not!”

She laughs maniacally, “You do! You _ so _ wear it. Ew, does that mean that you wear it when-”

“Okay, that’s just gross.” Emily can feel her face heating up. She doesn’t bother to look at Kelley, who she’s sure is having a fit.

Kelley calms down just enough to say, placing her hand on Emily’s shoulder, “Son, that’s gross. Like, it’s really nasty,” before bursting into giggles once more.

“Jesus Christ, I don’t even wear it _ at all. _And I would never- anyways, shouldn’t it be your job to ensure that all of your guests are having fun?”

“No, it’s my job to get fucking married.”

“So you’re saying you want bad vibes at your wedding? You know, Lindsey and I can really affect a whole lot of people.” 

“There won’t be any bad vibes if you just grow a pair. Not my problem that you guys suck at friends with benefits.”

Despite the way _ friends _screams out to her, Emily rolls her eyes, trying to pass it off as unbothered, “Wise words from Mrs. Kelley.”

“Watch it, kiddo.”

“I should just drop you off right here, let you walk home. Get someone to help you cross the street if you’re having trouble.”

“This is ageism,” Kelley whines, sinking down into her seat.

“Grow a pair,” Emily smirks.

“Touché.”

There’s a pause as they cruise, or rather, inch along, through morning traffic. Emily doesn’t know if it’s the caffeine, but her stomach is doing somersaults inside of her just thinking about being near Lindsey again. 

The last time was three months ago. Atlanta played their last game of the season against Portland, and Kelley had the great idea to get everyone together at some bar that Emily used to go to a lot after games. It happened like usual, Lindsey and Emily see each other again, they get drunk, and the next thing they know they wake up together in bed. It’s become so common that Emily stopped rushing out in embarrassment the morning after, and they go and get coffee together. It’s still awkward, but they do it anyways. Really though, Emily just thinks Lindsey does it because she feels obligated to try and actually talk to each other. They go to places they usually went to, and eat avocado toast like everything’s normal.

But that was just for the season. This year, she’s done. She’s been doing great for the first two months of the off season. The key? To not see Lindsey, ever. Limit all of their possible interactions with each other.

She doesn’t know why she needed to continue whatever happened at Tobin and Christen’s wedding, make it an unfortunate habit. She was fine with being relatively single before. She was fine before she actually talked to Lindsey.

(This reminds her too much of her first year in Atlanta. Home felt too unfamiliar, she felt too empty without someone by her side, even though there were so many people by her side. Too many, maybe.

If that first year taught her anything, it was that to move on with her life, she needs to cut out Lindsey from it.

Emily doesn’t miss Portland. Emily shouldn’t miss Lindsey.)

Sick of her stomach lurching with anxiety, Emily turns to Kelley desperately, “Please? Even if I beg?”

Kelley is looking nonchalantly at her phone. “Tempting, but no.”

“I’ll do anything. I swear.”

She looks up and smirks, “Maybe. I need some more convincing.”

“I’ll help you with wedding errands! I’ll, uh, do something dumb at your bachelorette party, and you can film it! I’ll buy you brunch, anytime you want!”

Kelley leans back in her seat and stretches out her legs, obviously pleased by the offer, “Hm. Maybe.”

Emily groans as they pull up next to Kelley’s apartment building. She’s slightly hopeful that Kelley could change her mind in the next five seconds or so, but not that much. She forces herself to ignore any expectations. She’s been doing that a lot lately.

Kelley opens the door and starts to climb out, but turns to say, smiling, “Oh, by the way Son, one more thing.”

“Yes?” Emily sighs, tapping her fingers on the wheel. She doesn’t let her heart soar with relief just yet.

Kelley winks and says, “Please don’t fuck at my wedding.”

Emily can hear her laughter outside of the car as she flips Kelley off. 

\---

This wedding party sucks. 

Actually, it’s kind of fun. Emily will give Kelley one thing, it’s that she knows how to party. That’s the only thing Emily will give her currently, because Kelley is a fucking asshole. And Emily doesn’t care if she just got married and it’s supposed to be one of the happiest days of her life. 

Because she put her not just at a table with Lindsey Horan, but _ right next to _ Lindsey Horan and her stupid pantsuit that shows off her arms and shoulders, and dumb makeup that perfectly highlights her bright eyes. Lindsey Horan who has been looking over at Emily all day. Lindsey Horan who Emily has been desperately trying _ not _to look at all day. 

Trying being the key word.

It’s been awkward, to say the least. Mal definitely knows, and keeps on kicking Emily’s leg from under the table, and that means Dansby knows and that’s just weird. Emily assumes that Lindsey told Rose, based on how much she’s been coughing lately. At least Sam seems fine, sitting with Pat who seems to be just as oblivious. 

It sort of feels like Kelley slapped together a kids table and placed Sam and her husband in charge. Except not really, because two of the kids keep hooking up, so most likely a teen table. Emily wouldn’t go so far as saying adult. She can admit when she’s being immature.

For example: it was sort of stupid to choke on her food when Lindsey placed her hand on Emily’s chair, and how Emily felt it graze her neck back just slightly. She almost stained her dress again. That would’ve been even dumber. She doesn’t let herself think about the next sweatshirt Lindsey might’ve given her.

Now, she’s just grateful for the reprieve for just a minute, when Lindsey went to get more food with Rose, with Sam and Pat and Mal and Dansby mingling around. She gets to eat in peace, without fear of choking. Just to make sure, she washes down her food with water.

Until Kelley, the asshole, jumps onto Emily from behind as she’s mid-swallow. 

“Hey!” she says, drawing out the ‘ey’. “How’s it going? I saw some nice tears during the ceremony, were those for me?”

They weren’t. They were for no reason in particular. 

Well, Kelley and her wife just looked really happy, and Sam was crying next to her, and Pinoe was hollering, and then Emily thought about how Kelley has mentored her for years and she’s getting married and she’s retiring, and then Sam _ really _started to cry so of course, Emily did too. Anyone would at that point. If Sam is blowing full tissues next to you, it looks bad if you don’t cry.

(Truthfully, she’s not one for crying at weddings. She doesn’t really know why she did.)

But “Shut up,” is all Emily can say, turning away from Kelley, coughing slightly and taking gulps of water.

“How’re you liking your seat?”

“They’re comfortable. Good support.”

“Not that! Your seating placement, with,” Kelley pauses, then drops down into an exaggerated whisper, “you know who!”

Emily rolls her eyes, “Aren’t you supposed to be with your _ wife _right now?”

Kelley responds right away, “Aren’t you supposed to be having fun right now?”

“I can’t, because of _ someone _’s choices.”

“Oh, boohoo, Son. Go! I decree it as the bride. Get drunk or something!” Kelley tries to pull her out of her chair, but Emily remains stubbornly seated.

“I can’t! That’s the exact problem! Do you see this water?”

“Dude, why? People will start to think that you’re pregnant.”

“What? How can I be pregnant? No, it’s because I’m always drunk when we, you know,” Emily says, trailing off at the end.

Luckily, Kelley is there to fill it in with a loud, “Fuck.”

Emily looks around, making sure no one else heard, then whispers, “Yeah.”

“So?”

“_ So? _If I get drunk, I’m going to fuck up again and-”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah,” Emily sighs. Kelley pats her on the back.

Emily grimaces and says, “For the record, this counts as peer pressuring me to do drugs.”

“I’d never! I am very responsible.”

“Are you sure you’re even mature enough to be married now?”

The way Kelley doesn’t even have a comeback and smiles softly, eyes turned away to her wife when Emily says that makes her chest hurt, for some reason. So she turns away and continues to eat.

Until Kelley is tapping her on the shoulder saying, “Speak of the devil.”

Emily turns to see Lindsey coming over with a sheepish grin and a plate full of food. She looks good. Really good. Emily is worried that she’s having those thoughts completely sober.

“Am I interrupting something?” Lindsey half laughs, placing her plate down on the table.

“Yes,” Emily says, just as Kelley says enthusiastically, “No!”

“Okay then,” Lindsey says as she shrugs, sitting down. Emily half expected her to make a joke.

“Where’s Rose?” Emily asks, instead of making the joke she feels that needs to be there. Kelley slaps her on the arm. Emily sees Lindsey’s eyes flit down to it, and Emily wants to kill Kelley. Her wife will survive.

“She got caught up in something or other with Mal, then tried to rope Sam into it? Uh, by the way, Kelley, you may want to watch out.”

Kelley laughs, “They can try to take me on, but they’ll never succeed.” She flexes her arms and kisses them, and Emily pushes them down in disgust. Lindsey giggles, and it takes all of Emily’s power not to look at her and feel a shameful sense of pride. So instead, she takes a sip of her drink, and remembers that it’s just tasteless water.

“Son, stop drinking that shit. Get beer. I’m sponsored.”

“_ Kelley, _what do we say about peer pressure?” She pauses, then takes the jump because she can see Lindsey out of the corner of her eye just watching the conversation and feels bad that she’s the third wheel, “Linds, back me up here.”

“Yeah, Kel, if Sonny wants to be lame then it’s her choice.” Emily dares to look over at Lindsey and she’s looking right back, eyes intense and unwavering, slightly smug grin on her face. Like she knows that she’s causing Emily’s stomach to be all over the place. She probably does, they’ve done this back and forth so many times before.

And then Lindsey’s eyes glance down to Emily’s lips and Emily deeply considers the merits of just giving in.

Kelley coughs loudly, “I think I hear my wife calling me, you two have fun!” And before Emily can kick Kelley discreetly, she’s gone and Emily’s leg just kicks the thin air. Thin air that has grown thick with silence between her and Lindsey.

Emily groans, “She’s going to use that all the time now. I don’t think she should be allowed to be married, just for how annoying I know she’s gonna be about it.”

“I think it’s kind of sweet,” Lindsey says, and Emily doesn’t look at her because she’s too concerned with the ‘whoosh’ her heart just made.

So she retorts, “Kind of? It’s disgustingly sweet.”

“Okay, fine. I get it. Gotta love being single at a wedding.” 

And only then does Emily look at Lindsey.

“You’re single?”

Lindsey looks right back at her, face deadpan and Emily doesn’t know if she’s screwing with her or being serious. “Sonny. Are you stupid?”

“Well, I didn’t want to like, assume-” she starts, but trails off. Lindsey’s eyebrow is now quirked slightly, just like the corners of her lips.

Lips that Emily should not be looking at, even if the shade of lipstick makes them look really nice.

It’s silent again, so Emily chokes out a forced “Yeah.”

Lindsey smiles wider, turning around in her chair so that she can face Emily completely, arm leaning on the back of the chair in a way that makes it look really nice. Their knees brush slightly, and Emily is stuck in between jerking her leg away and keeping it there for the sudden warmth.

“So, how’s it going?” Lindsey asks.

“Good. Good.”

“You didn’t win the championship like you said you would, captain,” she teases, laughing a little at her own joke. Emily shouldn’t find it cute, but she does. Emily shouldn’t be slipping back into old routines so quickly.

She shouldn’t, but she teases back a little anyways, “Hey! Neither did you!” And then, Lindsey laughs louder and Emily forgets everything. It’s almost as if she didn’t need alcohol to feel high.

She continues, seeing just how much more Lindsey can laugh, “Kinda sad, you’d think with the Great Horan leading you, you wouldn’t get knocked out in semis.”

“What, with the Dasani you would lose?” Lindsey doesn’t laugh at that one, but somehow it feels just as good.

Emily finds herself smiling, “Never said that-”

“We got farther than you did.”

“Yeah, but that’s comparing like, a racehorse to a pony. Expectations are different.”

Lindsey nonchalantly takes a sip of her drink, raising her eyebrows and smiling slightly, “Expectations, huh? I heard that you rule with an iron fist. Apparently, you’re a real hard ass. I would expect a team with a captain like that to do better.”

Emily gasps, placing her hand on her chest, “From who? What source is this from? Who do I need to kill?”

Lindsey smirks, “I’ll never reveal my secrets.”

“Okay, and what, like you’re not a hard ass? We used to be on the same team, Lindsey. I remember doing drills with you. It’s always ‘use your left foot there’ and ‘settle it faster here’ and-”

“I was just helping! And you know, you need it.”

“Okay, Lindsey, I know you’re the Great or whatever, but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna sit here and take this.”

“You won’t?” Lindsey responds, quirking her eyebrows slightly. 

Emily blushes a little. While she’s thinking of a good comeback, Lindsey beats her to it, smiling, “Maybe I still have a couple of things to teach you. Maybe then, you can reach the Great Horan level.” 

Emily can’t help but smile back. The way Lindsey looks at her, eyes slightly crinkled, it always makes her feel reckless. 

It must be why she thinks, I missed this, even though they do this all the time. Which, actually, is the issue at hand.

But instead, she chokes out, “Anyways, how’s it going with you?”

“Good,” Lindsey says, then smiles and stares Emily down. “I’m kinda bored, actually.”

Emily tries not to crumble under her gaze and stammers out, “Is my company not enough for you? Are you not happy with just catching up with an old friend?” _ Friend _. There’s that word again. 

Completely blankly, Lindsey says, “No.”

“Why?” she mumbles.

Then Lindsey bursts into a smile, and Emily is almost blinded. She’d be relieved, but it somehow makes her heart beat faster.

“Because you suck at small talk, Sonny.”

“I do not!”

“How are you? What’s up?” Lindsey mimics, laughing at Emily.

“Hey! You do that too! It takes two to tango!”

Lindsey smiles and says, “It does.” She then stands up, pushing her chair back, and Emily is struck by just how tall Lindsey is. She’s wearing heels again, just like at the last wedding. Emily’s gotten used to seeing her in sneakers.

“Where are you going?” Emily asks. She feels so small suddenly. 

Lindsey downs the rest of her drink and snarks, “Tangoing.” 

Emily’s heart sinks. “Oh. Okay, have fun,” she says, as Lindsey walks away. She turns around in her seat and goes back to picking at her food. It was stupid to ever try to talk to Lindsey and not cave. It’s for the best, anyways, she thinks, if Lindsey isn’t here to make her do stupid things, she can’t do any of them. It’s safer. This is what she wanted.

At least until Lindsey calls out to her just seconds later, “Em, are you coming or do I have to bring that chair with me?”

It’s embarrassing how quickly Emily gets up, her chest already feeling a thousand times lighter and giddy, despite her lack of alcohol. 

—- 

Emily doesn’t remember how they got here.

They ended up in her home, of all places. She doesn’t remember why they chose her home. It could’ve been anywhere else. The hotel. The car. At the wedding, even if it would’ve taken a lot of convincing. Her home didn’t really need that much. Just a quickly spoken suggestion in a blur and then they were driving there just a little too fast.

It’s only fair, she supposes. Last time they were in Atlanta, they did it in Lindsey’s hotel room. It’s probably the first time Lindsey’s seen her apartment.

It’s funny, she doesn’t remember the last time much either. And the time before that. And the time before that one. She was drunk. She made a mistake. Lindsey made a mistake. It’s in the past.

But it’s also funny how much the past feels like the present. 

Her eyes aren’t open currently, lost in everything that Lindsey’s doing, her hands, her mouth insistent on Emily’s own, but in the back of her head, she knows that if she opened her eyes, she would see a Portland Thorns scarf hung up, just above an Atlanta one. It’s the only Portland thing she has up. The rest is probably in the back of her closet, like her Portland key chain holder, or her Thorns jacket, or her jersey. The scarf felt the right amounts of impersonal. She owns more Atlanta scarves.

She wonders if Lindsey noticed it when they stumbled in. She wonders if Lindsey can tell what she’s thinking. She used to always know, back in Portland. But it’s been a while. It hasn’t actually, but they don’t really think much during the times they do see each other.

Emily is thinking too much. She probably shouldn’t be thinking. She doesn’t want to think. She shouldn’t want that, but it’s all getting too confusing and loud in her head to think about that.

One thing she’s sure of is that Lindsey is hot. Really hot. And wants this. Which is hot, too.

So she kisses harder, until Lindsey is making small noises into her mouth. It’s funny how it’s almost routine; by now, she knows exactly what Lindsey likes. It’s almost like an instinct at this point, a muscle memory.

And it’s too much, maybe for Lindsey too, and they both pull back breathless and lips red. Lindsey’s lipstick is slightly smudged. Emily knows it’s probably smeared over her own face, and for some reason it makes her feel a little sick, even though she’s not drunk. She’s way too alert to be drunk, way too sober to be feeling sick.

Lindsey doesn’t smile. She just takes one hungry look at Emily and attacks her neck, sucking what Emily knows will be angry marks the next morning. Emily breathes out and looks forward. She sees the Portland scarf.

The next time Lindsey looks up, Emily kisses her, closing her eyes. She cups Lindsey’s face gently, and kisses her softly. Too softly. She’s trying to fix it but knocks their heads together and then Lindsey is laughing against her lips and weirdly, Emily is reminded by how Kelley burst into laughter at the altar after she and her wife kissed. 

That wasn’t supposed to happen.

None of this was really supposed to happen. Emily’s thinking about the wedding now, how she’s thirty one and her sister is already married, thinking about kids and houses, and she’s single and lonely and the only time she goes to bars she wakes up with a headache and with the same person every time. And they’re not even friends, or even coworkers now, and it feels bad. It feels bad that Emily no longer knows what Lindsey’s thinking as she’s giggling against her mouth, hot air blowing onto her face.

She remembers that she used to dream about this in Portland.

“I think you gave me a concussion,” Lindsey laughs, pulling fully back so Emily can see her flushed face and those eyes. Emily’s heart is still racing, unsure what to do with her hands on Lindsey’s waist, and what to do about Lindsey hands wrapped around her shoulders.

She tries to inhale, joking breathily, “You’re tough. You’re strong. You can handle it.” Meanwhile, Lindsey’s hands are roaming, one landing by her ass and one at her chest, pushing her back in her kitchen counter ever so slightly. It’s becoming harder to breathe. She can’t remember if it was always like this. Maybe being sober was a bad idea.

Lindsey maintains eye contact as she smiles wolfishly, “I’m tough, huh? And strong?”

Emily rolls her eyes and says, “Oh, don’t let this get to your head,” but it becomes slightly choked off as Lindsey moves to plant kisses right below her jaw. 

“My concussed head,” Lindsey rumbles right next to Emily’s ear, lips brushing her lobe slightly. Her voice is low and raspy, and Emily feels like she’s in a fever dream. 

“Right,” she says, without thinking. “Wait, no-”

Lindsey laughs again. “Let me show you just how strong I can be,” she whispers, softly this time, but the way Emily can hear her smile makes her even more nervous.

And then Lindsey picks her up bridal style. Emily finds herself laughing. Lindsey’s hands are so warm, carrying Emily like it’s nothing.

“Put me down!” she screams through giggles. Lindsey ignores her and walks through her hallway, knocking Emily’s legs on the wall clumsily. She opens a door, but finds Emily’s bathroom, a mess after desperately trying to find her one expired mascara.

“Wrong door,” Emily snarks.

“I can see that,” Lindsey says and turns around to open the door next to it to the bedroom. She falls with Emily into her bed clumsily. They’re both giggling. 

“Your room is a mess,” she says, sitting up and looking around. Emily blushes.

“Didn’t know that someone was going to be coming over.” 

Lindsey fixes her with a stare, eyebrows raised. She says nothing, eyes almost indifferent, but Emily knows that she’s challenging her. She feels exposed like this, laying down while Lindsey is sitting up, staring at her. She blushes even harder. It feels like her face is on fire.

She clears her throat and changes the topic, whining, “You bruised me. I’m gonna be sore.” 

Lindsey pouts, “Aw, poor baby.” 

“Didn’t know we used pet names now. Take me out to dinner first, Linds,” Emily says without thinking. Then her heart jumps up into her throat, almost as if she’s going to throw it up.

She spills out with words instead, “I didn’t mean it like that, you know, just like- as our usual banter, whatever we do-”

“Emily,” Lindsey says. She looks right into Emily’s eyes and places her hand on her thigh. Emily swallows down whatever feeling is in her throat.

“Yes?”

Lindsey breaks out into a smile, “Shut up.” She falls on top of Emily and kisses her softly, and as they sink down into her bed, and Emily thinks that it might be okay. Lindsey’s weight on top of her ties her down to reality, and she feels less on guard and more relaxed. Content. It’s the stuff of her dreams, at least then. Maybe now, too. It doesn’t matter.

Until Lindsey pulls back and stands up to take off her pantsuit, saying offhandedly, “I can take you to dinner if you want, though.” And then Emily is back to feeling naked and vulnerable, and she’s the one fully clothed.

“Hey, is that my sweatshirt?” Lindsey says, and Emily scrambles up to see what she’s pointing at, hoping that it’s not what she thinks it is. It is. It’s Lindsey’s stupid sweatshirt from a year ago crumpled up on the floor of her bedroom.

“Um, yeah.”

“The one I gave to you that first time?” Emily can’t tell what Lindsey’s thinking by the tone of her voice. It makes her wish she kept that skill.

“Yeah.”

“You kept it? I just assumed you lost it, or trashed it, or-”

“No, I kept it.” By now, it’s starting to feel like an interrogation. 

Lindsey’s voice grows softer around the edges, “Do you wear it?” It makes Emily terrified.

She swallows, “No,” blushing under Lindsey’s hard gaze. She wonders how long they can stay like this, Lindsey half-undressed and Emily trying to keep still, holding her breath.

She only exhales when Lindsey shrugs and moves to take off her clothes completely, leaving her in just her underwear. Statistically, it should feel normal at this point, but Emily can’t help but stare at Lindsey, clothes shed off. In her bedroom. It’s never been in her bedroom before.

Lindsey kneels in between Emily’s legs on the bed, kissing her and leaning her back slowly until when Emily opens her eyes, she can see Lindsey, hair falling down onto Emily’s face. They laugh, and Lindsey moves to unzip Emily’s dress. 

Emily feels stupid, and kind of useless, so she moves her hand under Lindsey’s bra. And then Lindsey is the one to exhale, moving back. And then she’s sitting up, Emily with her hands on her, breathless. Emily feels shaky.

Lindsey looks at her hungrily, saying quietly, “God, baby, you’re so hot.” Emily almost can’t hear it, and it takes her a moment to process it.

“Baby?” she asks, whispering to no one in particular. Lindsey is busy working her way down from her neck, and can’t hear her.

They used to call each other baby in Portland. Before this. They used to say it offhandedly, sprinkling it into everyday conversation, saying it as a joke, even whispering it to each other when the other really needed it. It was nothing. They were friends.

But it feels like something now. They’re not friends. 

Lindsey senses that Emily has frozen up beneath her and sits up, concerned, “Em, are you okay?”

Everything in Emily’s body is screaming at her to shut up, but her brain can’t stop talking a mile a minute.

“I- I just. Linds, what are we even doing?” she asks, backing up until she hits the headboard.

“I,” Lindsey starts, but trails off. She looks sheepish, in her underwear, and Emily feels guilty.

“What are we?”

“What do you mean?” Lindsey asks, voice rough.

“Are we friends?"

Lindsey looks taken aback, like she wasn’t expecting that, and sputters, “Of course, Em, we’ve been friends for years, why would we stop?”

“It feels like we’ve stopped,” Emily says, trying to keep her voice from wavering. Lindsey doesn’t say anything to that, just looking down and picking at something in Emily’s sheets.

“Is this just sex?” There’s no response again.

Emily swallows thickly, “Is this more than that?”

And at that Lindsey’s head shoots up, and as she stares down Emily, unfaltering, she says slowly, “No.”

“Okay,” Emily breathes out. “Okay.”

“Is this more than that for you?” Lindsey asks. And maybe Emily is reading too much into it, but it sounds pleading. It sounds desperate. For what, Emily doesn’t know. 

It’s her turn to be rendered speechless, opening her mouth to speak but nothing comes out.

She’s about to lie, say something stupid or maybe act like it doesn’t matter and continue, but she sees Lindsey, in her underwear, on her bed, kneeling in front of her. Her hair is messed up, the perfectly ironed waves broken up into smaller strands, and it’s hanging, cascading in front of her face. She’s still wearing her makeup, or at least what hasn’t smudged off. The makeup around her eyes is still there, and it makes her eyes look clear and bright. Like a pool that Emily can see straight down into. She looks open.

So she tells the truth. She’s always been a bad liar.

“It used to be. It would’ve been. Then.”

And Emily can’t help but want to kiss her, just to remind herself what it feels like. To reach out and brush away her hair, cup her face, and steal the breath from her lips. She remembers what this feels like all too well. Mostly the part where Lindsey is looking away, ashamed. It makes Emily feel ashamed too. It makes her feel raw and open and bleeding, and like she’s staining her white sheets red.

Lindsey touches her own face, and Emily can’t see exactly what she’s doing through her hair, but it makes her throat start to close up. 

“I’m sorry,” she finds herself saying, “You should go. You should leave.”

“Em,” Lindsey says, and it’s softer than expected. It’s tentative.

“Linds, you need to go. I’ll pay for your ride, I still have your Venmo. I’m sorry,” Emily rushes, getting up and giving Lindsey her clothes on the floor. Their hands brush when she does so, and even though that touch should be nothing, Emily jerks her hand back.

“It’s-” Lindsey starts, hastily getting her clothes on. Emily looks to her. She feels something twinge inside of her, heart racing. It’s different; usually Emily is the one to be getting dressed and leaving.

But then Lindsey settles on mumbling, looking away, “Nothing. Nevermind.”

As she starts to leave, Emily calls out, “Linds. Wait.” 

She thrusts the sweatshirt into her hands. 

“Here. I almost forgot.”

Lindsey nods and puts it on quietly. 

Later at night, after Lindsey has texted her the cost of her ride to the hotel and Emily Venmoed it to her without responding, while Emily lies completely dressed and fully made up in her messed up bed, she gets the sudden urge to take out her box of Portland stuff from the back of her closet.

She doesn’t know if she wants to burn it or put her old jersey on over her unzipped dress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im sorry!!!!! i cant help adding in angst!!!
> 
> follow me on twitter @ broilbaby!!! it's private bc yall are messy on there but feel free to request 
> 
> happy holidays!


	3. reach me if you wanna stay up tonight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> precursor: i've never been to a bachelorette party, its just a plot device!!!
> 
> anyways. enjoy

Emily fixes her hair in the bathroom mirror. She curls it lightly with her iron that she brought from home. Just a touch of mascara, chapstick, and the slightest curl of her hair has been her go-to for ages, perfect for any event. Classy, understated, and most importantly, doesn't require much effort. Even if most of the times lately she just doesn’t feel like it, like plugging in the iron and waiting for it to heat up is too much work.

It feels appropriate now, though. Bringing back the old to see her old friends at Mal’s bachelorette party.

It wouldn’t be right to say she’s excited.

She’s happy for Mal, definitely. And Mal is happy. Mal, who Emily remembers becoming friends with when she was just a teen, is getting married in just a couple of days. Mal, in her late twenties. Mal, an adult.

She’s an adult, too. And happy. She visits her sister every couple of months in her new home in South Carolina, big enough for all of the kids she and her husband are planning on having. She sees her parents every week or two, eats her mom’s cooking at her insistence. She’s settled into a comfortable position as the ‘role model’ on her team, guiding young players and herding them around everywhere, cooking them food, comforting them after losses, inviting them over to just hang out when they’re lonely or homesick.

She’s made friends, good friends, in places where she used to feel certain that she couldn’t. She stopped watching every national team game, gave up on trying not to feel a need to prove something every time she put one on her TV. She’s in the prime of her career now, and she won’t win another World Cup, but she can rest easy knowing that she’s helped build something. Might not be in the ways that Sam is doing it, advocating for the NWSL and the USWNT, or Rose as an icon for young girls, but in small places. The locker room, the field, her team. Her finally unpacked home, a place she curates with care. Even building something in every dumb video she posts, though those have become few and far between.

She likes to think of it as excelling quietly. She may not be the face of Adidas, of the USWNT as it’s captain, of soccer in general. She may never be Ballon d’Or winner, or NWSL MVP (though she’s been nominated), advocate for change in women’s sports, from better coaching to more investment in the league. Not even Sam, or Rose, or Mal can do all of that.

(Well, Lindsey can. Lindsey Horan, who is most definitely living a happy, successful life, surrounded by people who love her. Because who wouldn’t? The whole world loves her. Emily understands.

Lindsey Horan, who Emily will see in less than an hour.)

It’s been a year, maybe more, since that night in Atlanta. And Emily still lives in the same apartment. She hasn’t won the NWSL championship yet. She sure as hell hasn’t won a Ballon d’Or. She hasn’t gotten married, she doesn’t have a long term girlfriend. She’s single to yet another wedding.

She tries to tuck her plain white T-shirt into her jeans but decides against it. She hopes it’s enough for Mal’s bachelorette party. It’s a casual affair at Mal’s parents’ home, with people that Emily knows. People that Emily should be comfortable around. It’s stupid to be this nervous.

She’s too old for this. Or maybe she’s too young. It’s weird, not being sure where she falls on the scale.

Her phone buzzes on the marbled sink counter. She picks it up, trying to do her mascara at the same time. It’s the group chat.

**meow pugh**  
Ladies! If ur at the hotel get ready because we’re picking you up in 5  
Dont be late!!!

Emily is just about to put her phone back down to avoid the onslaught of texts when she sees another one flash across the screen.

**lindsey**  
can’t wait!

Emily’s hand slips and she ends up smearing her old and sticky mascara just below her eyebrow. She tries to rub it off, but it just spreads everywhere, dark and smudgy, like a bruise.

She decides to forgo the mascara and wipes it off of both her eyes with makeup remover.

\---

Mal’s mom picks them up.

They’re driving out of Denver to the suburbs, enjoying some small talk. It’s casual. Easy conversation. She’s with people she knows, people she’s talked to before. Yet, as she sits between Sam and Kelley, she can’t help but feel claustrophobic. Which is fair, but it seems like she forgot just how much space Sam can take up. She’s not usually the one put up against defending her on set pieces. That goes to her taller teammates.

Kelley, of course, makes up for her lack of height with her pure presence that seems to physically take up space . She’s telling a story about a disaster at her own wedding last year, loud and boisterous. It’s funny. She’s funny. The whole car is laughing, Mal’s mom especially, half horrified and half delighted.

Andi jumps in with her own story, then Sam, while Emily stares out at the passing scenery, the city in front of the natural landscape, only glancing over occasionally with a chuckle.

She briefly wonders if you could ever get tired of the mountains. She’s sure that she’s asked someone that before. She doesn’t remember their answer.

The sound of Mal’s mom’s voice cuts through her thoughts.

“So, Emily, what about you?”

She startles, asking, “Pardon?”

Mal’s mom laughs and Emily feels her face heat up.

“You seeing anyone? Any wedding mishaps we should be prepared for too?”

“Oh, no ma’am,” she says and stops. It feels like something’s missing, though. She scrambles to continue trying to find what it is, “I mean, I’m not dating anyone, but rest assured my wedding will not have any disasters. No rookie mistakes for me.”

She turns to Kelley, smirking, “You hear that, Miss Kelley?”

The car erupts into small laughs, even though Emily knows she could’ve thought of something better. But still, she looks around at the smiles on her former teammates’ faces, feeling vaguely proud of herself. She allows herself to chuckle a little bit at her own joke.

One laugh she hasn’t noticed is Kelley’s. She can feel Kelley’s eyes trained on her.

“You don’t have to look at me like that, you know,” she says under her breath without glancing over once conversation has started flowing again.

“You know you’re seeing Horan tonight, right?” Kelley whispers back.

“No, I didn’t, Kel. Thanks for letting me know.” It has a little more bite in it than Emily expected, and she immediately feels awful.

“Yeesh, someone’s grumpy. Okay, I’ll stop bothering you about it.”

It’s not Kelley’s fault. She hasn’t been in Atlanta for the past year. She doesn’t know that it’s not something she talks about often.

The people who know her well enough don’t bother her about it. They don’t get together much anyways, all busy with various things in different corners of the world. And the people who don’t know her well enough don’t dare to talk about it. At least, not to her face. Somehow, it’s spread to the rookies, and they take quick glances at her whenever Portland or Lindsey comes up. Which is a lot, seeing as how big of a star she is.

And she doesn’t see Lindsey often. She sees her, definitely, her face is everywhere, but when that face is real and up close, Emily can’t bring herself to look. That way, she can pretend that the hand that she shakes loosely before and after games is someone else’s, or doesn’t even belong to anyone. But she really knows, from how it envelops her own hand completely with white painted nails, that it’s someone’s. Someone specific.

She’s been lucky that most of their games happen on national team duty days, Lindsey off being a legend and Emily losing again to a team without its star players.

It’s for the better, really. It was starting to get dangerous. Emily didn’t want to get dragged down again. She doesn’t want to drag Lindsey down from her rise.

She taps Kelley on the shoulder as she laughs at something Sam said. Kelley turns to her, eyebrow lifted slightly.

“Sorry for snapping at you,” Emily says quietly.

Kelley smiles softly, “It’s okay.” Emily nods.

Kelley continues, “Look, she’s like your ‘one that got away’. It’ll be awkward, but you’ll still get along. It’s fine.”

“She’s not the one that got away,” Emily says, laughing a little, looking out the window.

When she looks back at Kelley, she’s staring at her with an odd look. When Emily mouths, “What?” Kelley just shakes her head and gets back into the conversation.

Emily’s right, though. She can’t be the one that got away if there was nothing there. She can’t be the one that got away if Emily didn’t try to get her in the first place.

\---

Mal shrieks with joy and rushes out of the house as they clamber out of the car. She gives each one a hug and a kiss on both cheeks. Kelley gets there before Emily, laughing like a maniac with Mal already.

“Kelley, you old geezer! How are you!” Emily can hear Mal scream.

“I’m not old,” Kelley whines. “You’re the one getting married, let’s talk about that.”

Emily knocks herself into their group, pushing aside Kelley.

“Mrs. Pugh. No longer the teen wonder, now an old marm.”

Mal shrieks, wrapping her in a hug.

“Hope you didn’t miss me too much,” Emily laughs into it.

“Who else will tell me that my diet could be improved for maximum effectiveness on the field, yet shovels Waffle House into her mouth every weekend?”

“Okay, but Waffle House transcends nutrition-” Emily starts. But as Mal moves out of her line of sight to walk alongside her, she sees a quiet figure at the doorway.

She’s dressed in ripped black jeans and her hair is up in a bun, tiny tendrils of hair loose and hanging. She looks different than all of the photo shoots and promotional posters Emily has seen plastered all over her timeline, her Instagram feed, her whole livelihood.

She looks smaller.

“Hey, Sonnett,” Lindsey says, completely neutral.

Emily almost trips on her own feet.

“Hey, Lindsey.”

There’s a moment of quiet between them. Emily has stopped walking, and so has Mal and Kelley beside her. Emily can hear herself breathe.

She coughs, “Nice to see you.”

Lindsey crosses her arms and steps to the side to let them through.

“Nice to see you too.”

Lindsey’s voice is smooth and even. It makes Emily’s heart race.

Then Rose comes screeching from inside the house and attacks her with a bear hug, and Emily is thankful for a distraction.

After Rose lets go of her and allows her move, she hangs back, lets Mal and Kelley enter first. She takes a step in last, after an excited and already buzzed Rose. Lindsey is still holding the door open for her, waiting patiently. Emily makes brief eye contact with her, almost immediately looking away. Lindsey doesn’t look small now.

Lindsey gives her a curt nod, lips pursed, and nothing more. She turns to shut the door behind them.

Emily doesn’t wait for her to turn back around. She walks into Mal’s home and hears herself yell, “Mal, you have any alcohol? Let’s get this party started!”

Kelley laughs, slinging an arm around her, “There she is!”

Emily chuckles as well, resisting the urge to turn around to see the eyes she feels on her back.

\---

Mal decided on a good old sleepover theme.

It’s quiet, no fuss, and Emily doesn’t have the words for just how grateful she is for that. They’re watching Titanic, facemasks on, just a little tipsy off of white wine. A bowl of nice popcorn sits between them all. Mal got them all bathrobes, and though they’re comfortable, it feels a little weird to be wearing it over her jeans. But the wine is good, the group is all relatively acquainted and comfortable, and Emily can’t complain. It’s the nicest fake sleepover that Emily has ever been to.

She can’t remember the last time she’s had a sleepover.

Of course, there were always childhood sleepovers with her friends, gossipping and laughing and watching movies on one couch under one ratty blanket. Then they’d go to sleep after long talks about their dreams, fears, boys, people they hated, fuzzy jokes, quiet laughter, and promises. Promises to be friends forever, promises to go to the mall next Saturday, promises to finally be quiet and fall asleep. And after the whispers and laughter had petered out, when all that was left were cicadas outside, Emily would always feel slightly uncomfortable. She’d turn in her constricting sleeping bag, trying to keep her limbs to herself, unable to drift off.

She’d always chalk it up to sleeping on the hard floor.

And there were more, in Portland. With Lindsey, Caitlin, Ellie, cooking food, taking pictures on the balcony, and watching whatever piqued their interest first on Netflix. With just Lindsey, on her big couch. Emily felt the same twist in her stomach then, the same pain in her chest.

It definitely wasn’t because of sleeping on the hard floor, or even the couch. She slept in a bed that time. Lindsey would always insist on sleeping in the same bed, under the covers and warm. Still trying desperately to keep her limbs to herself.

And then more, later on. But those don’t really count.

They’re nowhere near each other. Emily is lounging on the floor with Rose, and Lindsey’s up on the couch. She’s painting her nails, laughing with Mal about something or other. Laughing with Mal a lot. Emily can’t focus on what’s going on in Titanic, a movie she’s seen thousands of times because of how loud they’re being, and with every eruption of giggles that she hears behind her she grows more and more annoyed.

The thing is, in Atlanta, that would be her up there. With Mal. She feels so out of place here, like she’s too quiet and too loud at the same time. Like they’ve all developed this connection without her and she was invited along as an act of kindness.

Which is both true and false. Because Emily can’t know what happens when Mal goes off to camp. She only knows Atlanta.

And it’s not Lindsey. Lindsey hasn’t said a word to her this whole time, and why should she? Lindsey seems content without talking to her, joking around and being her classic physically affectionate self to Mal and Rose. Emily is content to not put her foot in her mouth like she always does around her.

“Jesus, Son, you’re that mad at the rich people? You look like you want to kill someone,” Rose says, waving her hand in front of her face. Emily slaps it away.

“Mad that you’re next to me,” she grins, shoveling some popcorn into her face.

On the TV, Jack pulls Rose down the stairs to the crowd of people dancing. Emily focuses on that instead of looking anywhere else. Rose, the real life one, is complaining about her hogging the popcorn or something, but she’s not paying attention.

She’s trying to listen to the movie instead, but all she can hear is Lindsey’s laugh behind her. Meanwhile the camera is spinning around Jack and Rose, laughing as well.

So Emily stands up.

And then she bows, to Rose, plastering a stupid smile on her face.

“May I have this dance, Rose?”

Rose gasps in mock surprise, placing her hand on her chest. She puts on the worst British accent Emily has heard, “Why, Jack, that is mighty improper. I don't believe you shall." Emily raises her eyebrows and glares at her.

Rose groans, sighing, "Fine, you shall."

She takes Emily’s hand and jumps up, immediately starting doing something jig-related with her feet. Emily just blindly follows, getting dizzy as they spin around each other.

She can hear more laughs than just Lindsey’s now.

So she grins, deciding to take this all the way. She wiggles her eyebrows at Rose, mouthing something. Rose laughs, and takes her hand, spinning her once.

And then she dips her down.

Emily kicks up one leg in the air, for dramatic effect, trying to breathe through giggles. Kelley whoops in the background. Sam is taking a video. Lindsey’s on her phone too. She’s scrolling through, thumb moving from the top to the bottom, and Emily feels like the room is still spinning even though she's hanging still. She can feel the blood rush to her head.

And then Rose drops her.

“Oops, sorry!” she giggles. Emily flips her off, still smiling, but her back hurts from the drop.

She stands up, walking back, feeling the dizziness hit her as she wobbles just a bit. Lindsey’s painting her nails, so casually, like she does all the time, like she used to do with Emily, like Emily used to do for her. She turns to Mal and says something, Emily can’t hear what it is, and smiles. And something inside of Emily flares up, ugly and white hot like the nail polish.

As she plops back down into her designated spot, she can only half recognize that her elbow is moving back, back into the couch.

It hits the nail polish bottle.

Emily whips her head around. The polish looks milky now, a small puddle. It looks sad. She feels the anger inside her cool down into something cold and disappointing and gross. Her heart races just the same.

She jumps up. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry, here, I’ll help you-“

“Don’t worry, it’s okay.”

Emily looks up. Lindsey is smiling.

“No, really, I’m sorry-“

Lindsey places her hand on Emily’s.

“Seriously, Son. It’s okay.”

Emily jerks back her hand.

“Don’t eat all the popcorn without me! I’m going to go clean this up,” Lindsey says as she gets up. Emily watches, mouth agape as Lindsey slips out and walks to the bathroom.

It's silent.

“You’re lucky she was covering the couch,” Rose says dryly. Emily can see Kelley glare at Rose out of the corner of her eye. Emily stands.

“I’m going to go, uh. Check on her,” she announces. No one says anything, they just look at her and look back at the TV. Emily just turns and braces herself as she walks through the dark hallway. The bathroom is lit, small and hidden, next to the stairs. The yellow light from inside glows out, making it easier for her to walk through without bumping into anything.

She stops at the door. Lindsey is washing her hands, scrubbing at the polish. Strands of hair from her bun are falling in front of her face. Lindsey tucks one back with her soapy hand.

Emily takes a deep breath, clears her throat, and says, “Sorry that you have to redo all of your nails. That was a real klutz move of me.”

Lindsey lifts her head up to look at her.

“Do you need help?” Emily asks, shoving her hands into the pockets of her bathrobe. She didn’t notice those before.

Lindsey smiles sweetly, “No, it’s all good.”

“You sure?”

“You don’t need to help.” Lindsey has turned her head back to the sink, scratching at the stubborn bits of polish that remain.

“I-” Emily starts, but Lindsey whips her head up. Her eyes are so blue. Emily swallows back her words.

“Son. I’m fine.”

Emily just nods and turns away from the bathroom, walking back to the sounds of Titanic while cursing herself.

\---

Emily tosses and turns.

She always hated the actual sleeping part of sleepovers. She never understood how other kids could doze off at the drop of a hat, could sleep without feeling trapped in their stupid sleeping bags.

She can’t help but wonder if Lindsey feels the same. She doesn’t think that she does. Or could, rather. These are her friends. She’s in her hometown.

Of course, there’s always a chance.

She gives in to the urge and turns to see where Lindsey is sleeping, fully expecting to sneak a quick glance at her back and then turn away quickly, but only finds a rumpled sheet on the couch.

She flops back over, closing her eyes, trying to force herself back to sleep. But her mind can’t stop thinking about Lindsey. Where she could be. What she’s thinking. Why she’s thinking that. It feels like Lindsey’s hand, freshly cleaned of nail polish, is crushing her heart in her chest.

She sits up, rubbing her eyes and slowly getting to her feet, careful to not disturb Andi next to her. She needs some water. She feels lightheaded as she pads to the kitchen, careful as her eyes get used to the darkness, hands out and fumbling around corners. She coughs a little, trying to quietly clear her throat.

And mid-cough, she sees Lindsey’s figure sitting at the kitchen counter, cup of water in hand and phone in the other, and almost chokes.

She considers backing out quietly, going back to sleep, letting it all behind her and enjoying herself at Mal’s wedding without thinking about past ones. But Lindsey looks, well, lonely.

So without thinking, she says, in as confident a voice as she can muster, “Hey.”

Lindsey turns in surprise.

“Hey.” Her hair is down, a little mussed.

Emily chuckles awkwardly, standing unsure at the doorway. “Can’t sleep?”

Lindsey shakes her head, placing her phone on the counter. Emily takes one step forward.

“Neither can I,” she says.

Lindsey just pulls out the chair next to her, wincing as it makes a loud noise. Emily takes one more step forward.

Lindsey doesn’t move.

Then in one swift motion, she sits down before she chickens out. Lindsey takes a sip of her water quietly, returning to her phone. She’s typing something out and Emily bitterly wonders if she’s texting her girlfriend, or boyfriend, or even worse, Russell. They’re in Denver, he still lives in Denver since Emily last checked.

It’s stupid. It’s been years. Since him. Since her. Since them.

So she says, like some sort of offering, but mostly just to get her mind off of it and Lindsey off of it as well, “Can’t believe Mal’s getting married.”

Lindsey looks up. Emily feels weirdly vindicated.

Lindsey huffs out a laugh, and Emily feels a little less vindicated, “Yeah. Being together as the ‘kids’ seems like just yesterday.”

Emily refuses to let herself think about or even feel the tiniest way about that statement. Lindsey seems to be doing it for her, though, she looks away and shifts her leg position just a little.

So she chuckles, hoping the tension dissipates, “Yeah. How long ago was it?”

“Don’t know. Five, maybe? Six?”

Five. It’s been five whole years. Emily has never been the greatest at math, but that’s a lot of days. A lot of hours. She can’t tell if it’s too many or too little.

“Huh,” is all she can get out. Maybe she took too long to think because Lindsey looks at her weirdly.

“What?” Emily asks.

“What do you mean, huh?”

Emily chooses her words carefully, “It doesn’t feel like five, but I don’t know, sometimes it feels like more. Like a whole other life. I feel- I feel older. I think about myself then and she was different. Less wrinkles and aches, definitely. Less belly fat from all the Waffle House.”

Lindsey doesn’t react, just stares at her in the dark, so Emily adds, “You too.” She regrets it immediately.

Lindsey finally speaks, “I get what you mean. Everything’s different. Like how you said.”

“Yeah,” is the only thing Emily says. Lindsey sighs and lets her head loll back. Emily feels frozen, watching Lindsey rub her face.

All she can hear is the sound of the crickets outside, the creaks of an unfamiliar house, and just the faintest sounds of her own breathing if she focuses. She’s taken up meditation lately, learning how to focus on different sounds, tune out all the others. Maybe that’s what Lindsey is doing.

Until she says, quietly, still looking at the ceiling, “I’m tired.”

“Go to sleep, then,” Emily responds, maybe too quickly.

Lindsey finally lifts her head to look straight at Emily.

“That’s not what I mean,” she says. She sounds somewhere on the edge of exasperated, or bored. She sounds tired.

Oh.

“Oh.”

Emily thinks she gets it, but she’s just the littlest bit unsure. She turns it over and over in her mind and each time she feels something different.

Lindsey interrupts her thoughts, “I might go to sleep, actually. It’s late. Early. Whatever.”

Lindsey used to say that, some version of that, when they’d sleep over at each other’s places. Not in the near past, the distant past, in Portland. Five years ago. She’d say that to Emily on her couch, yawning after a finished movie on that couch and pulling the blanket away from Emily. Her voice would be soft, just a little raspy, like it is now, at their fake sleepover.

She wouldn’t actually go to sleep after, though. She and Emily would let the TV play on as they talked in hushed voices about whatever came to mind. And even though Lindsey would take all of the blanket, the thing Emily remembered most about those moments was how warm she was.

She’s cold now, in the early spring night of Denver in just some old shorts and a ratty T-shirt. Lindsey’s wearing a sweatshirt and it looks warm. Soft. New. Emily hasn’t seen it before.

And as Lindsey gets up and pushes the chair back as quietly as she can, pocketing her phone, Emily hears herself say hoarsely, “Wait.”

Lindsey turns.

“I’m sorry.”

“What do you have to be sorry for?” Emily can’t see Lindsey’s face, and she can’t read her voice. It sounds like it’s a legitimate question, but once again Emily isn’t sure.

She swallows thickly.

“For spilling that nail polish,” she laughs shallowly.

Lindsey starts to turn away again.

"For screwing up. Last year, in Atlanta."

Lindsey stops.

She takes a step forward, leaning slightly on the counter. Emily has to look up at her, and normally she’d be intimidated, but Lindsey doesn’t look like it anymore. Maybe it’s because the outline of her is soft and fuzzy in the dark. Maybe because Emily is tired too, in whatever way Lindsey meant.

It’s dangerous, always was. The aftermath in the dark.

“It’s fine. We’re good now.”

“We are?”

Lindsey pauses. Emily feels her heart race.

“Sure,” she says, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. She waits again, then says softer, “Yes.”

Lindsey’s nervous.

“Okay,” Emily breathes out. She’s somehow more scared of this outcome.

“Okay,” Lindsey whispers. If Emily focuses, she can feel Lindsey’s breath on her face, see Lindsey’s lips move just the slightest. If she focuses, she can hear the sound of her own heartbeat.

If she focuses even more, she can see the vague shape of Lindsey’s pupils bore into her own, and out of the corner of her eye see Lindsey’s chest rise and fall.

And maybe it’s instinctual, a muscle memory of hazy nights spent together, but they both lean in for a kiss. It’s soft, warm, and sweet. Familiar. It feels like Emily’s past, wrapping her up in it’s sticky sweet dream, like molasses. Dark and sweet but bitter and sour and slow.

They finally pull apart and it takes Emily a second to process everything, slow like molasses.

And when Lindsey leans in once more, her phone flashes with a notification on the counter, and Emily jerks back as it all hits her.

She chokes up. “I’m sorry, you don’t need this-”

“What do you mean?” Lindsey asks, and she sounds tired again. Not angry, or nervous, just tired.

Emily stands, rambling at a million miles a second, face hot, “You’re Lindsey Horan. The Lindsey Horan. And I just screwed this up again.”

Lindsey just sighs.

“Why do you always get like this?”

“Like what?”

“You act like, like I’m way up high or something, like you‘re inferior somehow. Like you’re a burden. Like it’s only you who- who- God, you know?” Lindsey trails off, exasperated. Her voice sounds ruined.

Emily tries to even out her voice, whispering, “I told you. And you told me. It is just me. Was just me.”

“What do you mean, I-”

“When I asked, last time, you said there was nothing there.”

“So did you.”

Emily doesn’t remember it happening like that but she feels like she has to stop this immediately or else it can spiral out of her control.

“It’s just- let’s just go to sleep, okay? It's late, we probably woke up, like, the entire neighborhood and Mal’s poor parents. It’s not a big deal, it’s been years and it’s in the past.”

“Is it? I’ve always been in your life, Son, whether you like it or not.”

Emily feels something churn in her stomach.

She can’t stop herself from whispering, “But you’re not. Not anymore.”

Something flashes across Lindsey’s face. Emily can’t recognize what it is anymore.

She breathes in.

“We were fuck buddies, sure, we were acquaintances. But we’re not friends. We haven’t been friends for a while. We haven’t been like that since we were both on the Thorns, and- and once you realize that it’s just so much better.”

Emily swallows, and desperately tries to even her voice, adding, “Once you move on.”

“What is? What is so much better?” Lindsey asks, quiet but sharp.

“God, Linds, do you know how sad I was? That first year in Atlanta? I got this stupid idea into my head, that maybe, somehow, you’d feel the same, and it started in Portland and was supposed to end after that but then we did whatever we did because I was stupid and naive and- and it made me miserable, it somehow never made you miserable, but it, it-“

Emily stops. She swallows down the lump in her throat, tries to quiet her voice that’s always been just that little bit too loud at sleepovers.

She whispers, “But it’s in the past. It’s different now. You’re Lindsey Horan doing all the great things you were meant to do and be and I’m- I’m whatever. I’m happy. But I’m not going to like, bring you down. You deserve to move on.”

Lindsey’s chest is rising rapidly, the only moving object in the night. Emily feels sick.

“And have you?” she hears Lindsey say.

“Yes.”

Lindsey doesn’t respond, and Emily can’t even see her face that well but she knows what’s on it already, like she can see it in her mind's eye, clear as day. Finally knowing it feels different, like it sits perched in a specific spot in Emily’s stomach. It bothers her.

“Lindsey, what do you want?” she snaps. “Can we just go to sleep?”

Emily sees Lindsey’s chest rise a little bigger.

“What do I want? I want-“

And then it deflates again.

They’re left just staring at each other in the dark, like they used to do after Emily had made Lindsey see stars or vice versa, silent after screams and small breathy noises that took up more space than they should have, suddenly awkward in the wake of intimacy and feeling the chill on their sweaty foreheads.

Before one of them would crack a joke and get up to use the bathroom, tension pushed under the bed, and the lights turned on to find their belongings. Emily wishes that could happen at this stupid fake sleepover, can just leave to use the bathroom and try not to cry as she scrubs off the remnants of the cheap face mask she used. She wishes she could turn on the lights, and see what Lindsey is thinking. She wants to know.

Lindsey speaks lowly, all crackly and strangely insistent, “It’s not you against the world. Or you against me. Or you against you.” She pauses, lifting her head up to look at Emily’s.

Her voice turns into a whisper, “I wanted it to be us, together, against whatever you or I was facing. I wanted- God, do I have to spell it out?”

Emily nods dumbly, feeling small sitting in the stool as Lindsey stands. She feels that same heart race that she felt before, without the sickness and stomach churning.

Lindsey shifts on her feet.

“You asked me if it was something more. I lied. It was.”

It doesn’t shock Emily as much as she thought it would.

“Is it still?” Emily finds herself saying.

Lindsey heaves, “Yes.”

Then she lifts her head, “Is it for you?”

And Emily can’t think. She feels a tug in her gut and a pain in her chest that makes it hard to decide on anything at all. Lindsey tucks her hair behind her ear and it gets so much worse.

She pushes those feelings to the side and tries to breathe, like the meditation she’s been practicing lately. She breathes in and out like she does on the pitch after a call, after a loss, when she doesn’t feel like she’s enough.

She can’t just scream or do something impulsive like she used to. She can’t throw everything away. She doesn’t get that leeway anymore.

She starts, her mouth feeling fuzzy, “I-”

“What’re you guys doing?”

Emily whips her head around to see Mal walking into the kitchen, phone in hand and rubbing her eyes.

“Oh, uh-”

“We were just talking. Couldn’t go to sleep, but I think I’m fine now. Good night,” Lindsey interrupts, voice clear and low. She downs the rest of her water in one gulp, picks up her phone, and walks out, each step filled with purpose.

It leaves even more of a void in the dark room.

It’s just Emily and Mal staring at each other now. She doesn’t know where to place her hands.

“Uh,” she starts, trying to find the words to say.

Mal sighs, “Good night, Son. Get some sleep, maybe.” Then she leaves Emily alone in the dark, sitting on a stool that’s starting to hurt her butt.

Emily takes a drink of her water, feeling a headache setting in. She lets the cold settle in her throat, then in her stomach. She feels how icy her hands are, how weak they feel.

She realizes that she knows what she was going to say before Mal came in. She can’t formulate it exactly into cohesive words, but she knows the general shape of her thoughts, knows how it makes her feel.

It makes her feel terrified, makes her feel queasy, makes her feel like that cold water is rising fast in her mouth.

She places her empty glass in the sink carefully, right next to Lindsey’s. She rubs her eyes and blinks once or twice.

Maybe laying down on the cold, hard floor will solve her nausea.

\---

“G’morning.”

Emily gives a non committal groan as she scrunches her eyes closed further, turning over with the covers. She feels the warmth of sunlight on her face, and can see it through her closed eyelids.

“Son. Wake up.”

“Soon,” she mumbles.

She feels a hand brushing back the hair on her face softly. She pretends not to feel her heart speed up, gives in, and opens her eyes, squinting in the light.

“Morning, Linds,” she says, mouth feeling dry.

Lindsey smiles just a little bit.

“Coffee and avo toast?”

Emily nods slightly, backing up against the headboard, feeling her head pang dully.

“Duh.”

Lindsey turns to leave the room. She’s already dressed for the most part, in underwear and a clean T-shirt, different from last night. Emily can see a hickey poking out from the collar, dark and ugly in the warm sunlight.

She flops back down into the bed.

They head out into the cold air after Emily sleepily found all of her clothes on the floor and got dressed as Lindsey tried to discreetly be in another room, their usual morning dance. Emily shivers. It’s quickly turning into fall in Portland, the trees all shades of red and yellow and brown, crisp air paired with gentle sunlight. It’s a little too cold for her now, used to the Atlanta heat.

They sit outside anyways. Emily gets a cortado. Lindsey gets her cold brew with soy. They both get avocado toast.

“Cortado, huh? Spending too much time around Kelley?” Lindsey chuckles as Emily sips her coffee. It’s too hot and burns her tongue, but she winces and swallows.

“Yeah, next I’m gonna become vegan.”

“You wouldn’t.”

Emily grins, “But I could.”

Lindsey leans back in her chair, raising her eyebrows just a little, “Fine. You could.” Emily doesn’t know how to respond.

Their avocado toasts arrive, placed at their table by a kind looking waitress. She’s a brunette and small and nothing like Lindsey. Emily takes the distraction and smiles at her.

“She looked nice,” Lindsey says after the waitress has walked out of earshot.

Emily shrugs, stomach flipping. “I guess.”

Emily hears a crunch of the toast. She looks up and sees Lindsey already taking a bite.

She laughs, “What, no pictures?”

Lindsey swallows and then smiles, “I’m starving, you took so long to wake up.”

The coffee is making her feel a little warmer, and maybe that’s why she asks recklessly, “Would you rather have me rush out?”

Lindsey doesn’t hesitate before saying, “You mean, like you normally do?”

“Well, I have a plane to catch most times,” Emily says. Lindsey just nods and smiles and Emily can’t help but feel like she’s being tested somehow. That she’s miserably failing at justifying herself.

She doesn’t tell Lindsey that she tried to get a later flight so they could do this. She feels like that needs more justification, more words that she can stumble over, and decides it’s for the best.

She takes a sip of her coffee. Lindsey does as well.

“God, I can’t wait for the offseason. I’m so tired,” Lindsey groans, head tilted back into the sunlight and eyes closed. Her neck is exposed and Emily knows that she could see that bruise and averts her eyes.

“Just a couple more weeks.”

“I guess,” Lindsey sighs. She sits up. “You have plans?”

“Nah, just hanging around. Helping Kel with the wedding. Eating Mom’s food. The usual stuff. You have camp, right?”

Lindsey looks to the side, a little uncomfortable. Emily feels a pang of something in her chest.

“Yeah, if I get called up.”

And it’s the rush of caffeine that makes her say, “You know you will.”

“Yeah, I know,” Lindsey concedes, the corners of her mouth rising ever so slightly.

And it’s because of the coffee, that cortado in the chilly fall air. It’s the jitters in her leg, the churning of her stomach, the warmth spreading throughout her body. It’s what makes her smile back.

\---

Emily wakes up in Lindsey’s bed.

She knows because she feels Lindsey’s waist around her hands, rising softly as she breathes. Her back is turned to Emily, hair spread out across the pillow. Emily selfishly wishes Lindsey was turned to her so she can see her face, but she knows she probably couldn’t handle it.

She can barely handle being in the same bed, or even the same room as Lindsey as it is.

Lindsey, of course, made Emily sleep in her bed. She always does. She never seems to know just how much it kills Emily. Emily thinks that she’d rather keep it that way.

There have been times, of course, where she wishes it was different. When she had some sort of hope. When they’d look at each other for just a little too long and then go to bed and sleep to forget, or when they’d wake up too close to each other and the morning haze would fade away and Lindsey would leap out of bed immediately.  
For now, Emily just closes her eyes and nestles closer to Lindsey, placing her head on Lindsey’s back. She lets Lindsey’s warmth radiate towards the rest of her body, and pushes down the feelings of guilt. Maybe it’s just hunger.

But then Lindsey stirs under Emily’s arms and Emily automatically regrets it.

Lindsey sleepily turns her head around to face Emily, blinking her eyes slowly.

“Mornin’,” she mumbles, voice raspy.

“Morning sleepyhead,” Emily chuckles, trying to ignore how close they are.

“How long have you been up for?”

“Not too long. Couple minutes maybe.”

Lindsey hums in response, closing her eyes and scooting closer to Emily. Emily almost chokes on air.

“No, let’s get up, c’mon-“

Lindsey opens her eyes and turns her body to face Emily.

“Then move.”

Emily can’t challenge that. Lindsey’s eyes are bright and piercing, even as she’s just waking up.

They’re so close.

“Okay, let’s get up,” Lindsey says, peeling herself from Emily and stretching at the side of the bed. Emily scrambles to sit upright.

“Aw, leaving me so soon?”

“Shut up.” Emily can hear a smile in her voice even as Lindsey’s turned away from her.

“If you say so,” Emily says as she hops off of the bed, lightly placing her hand on the small of Lindsey back. As she leaves the room, she ignores how natural it feels.

A few minutes later, Lindsey walks into the kitchen. Emily can feel her eyes on her back as she putters around the area, cracking an egg into the swirling boiling water.

“You can come help, you know,” she says, smiling to herself..

“Nah.”

Emily can feel Lindsey come up behind her, leaning over her shoulder. It feels warm. She pretends not to notice and waits for the eggs to cook.

Lindsey says, “Nice poach.”

“Yeah, well, just wanted to treat you since you can’t do it for yourself. Provide you with a taste of the good life in Poach Town.”

“You’re so kind.”

“The kindest.”

She finally turns to Lindsey and grins, ignoring how soft she looks, still just a little sleepy and in her PSG sweatpants. Lindsey grins back, rolling her eyes, but all Emily can see is those dimples, one in each cheek.

And then Lindsey turns to pour herself some coffee, and Emily goes back to her egg. She scoops it up and dabs it with a paper towel before placing it on one of the plates of toast lathered with avocado.

She hears Lindsey ask from behind her, “You have plans for today?” as she drops another egg in.

“Yeah, have to go in for some extra PT, then talk with Mark about a couple of things.”

“Oh, okay, won’t keep you long, then,” Lindsey says, taking a sip of her coffee.

Emily waves her off without turning around, spatula in hand, “Nah, they're not until later in the afternoon. I don’t mind.”

“You sure?”

And she sounds just that doubtful, that surprised, and Emily turns around and stares directly at Lindsey, who is standing there, coffee mug in hand, and sunlight streaming in from the window behind her. She’s so pretty, and Emily feels like she should look away but has already committed.

“Hundred percent.”

“Cool,” Lindsey says, hiding her smile behind her mug of coffee.

Emily hides her own smile as she turns back to make sure her egg isn’t overcooking.

\---

Emily wakes up to silence.

The sky is that shade of bright grayish blue, almost white, where you know it’s too early in the morning to be up. She rubs her eyes, squinting her eyes in the blindingly harsh light and sits up. No one else is awake yet.

She looks to the side and sees Lindsey curled up, fast asleep. She’s turned away, facing the back of the couch, curled inwards.

And Emily suddenly remembers everything. It feels like recognizing a dream, muddling through and piecing the bits together in chronological order.

Even though they didn’t do anything, she can’t help but feel guilt weigh upon her body, mixed with the effects of sleep slowly fading away, and with that the dawning realization that she did that. She said those things. It was her fault.

It’s all too familiar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so if you noticed, i added a FOURTH chapter. what was supposed to be the last one was taking too long and was already pretty big, even in its unfinished state, so to make it easier to read i decided to split it up! also to cut down the wait time. dw, the wait for the next chapter shouldnt be as long bc i already have some written!
> 
> hope your quarantines are going well, stay healthy, stay safe, and stay inside!!! as always, you can request me @ broilbaby on twitter.


	4. get my feelings involved

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so. we're here, finally, after long long months that created this 13k final chapter :-) lots of feelings in this one, as the chapter title so helpfully suggests!
> 
> as a note, kelley has a big part in the chapter at the beginning, for anyone who needs it. anyways, consider donating to a Black trans fund [here](https://vivalatinamerica.tumblr.com/post/621013195214241792/donate-to-black-trans-groups) before you read this.
> 
> enjoy!

It’s the big day. 

Emily blankly stares at herself in the mirror, still tired from waking up just over an hour ago. It’s so much later than usual, way too late to have proper time to get ready, and it confuses her to no end. Confused her when she groggily checked the time and panicked, leaping out of bed, for sure. Her hair still looks like a bird's nest, even though she tried to neaten it up a little when she went out to get coffee at the Starbucks down the street. Some people were already having lunch.

She jams a comb through it, cursing a little under her breath as she yanks it too hard. It feels like her scalp is going to rip out and reveal her skull. She winces as she pulls through the knot quickly, briefly looking up at her reflection. 

She looks angry.

Emily takes a deep breath and puts down the comb, taking the hair tie that’s always on her wrist to tie it up in a bun. It takes one more go around than usual, the elastic has started to wear out, a tiny string of fabric barely holding it together. It’s at that stage where one twist is too loose and two is too tight and she has to pull hard to tug it over her bun, probably ripping out some hair.

It’s a big day, she reminds herself as she abandons her hair and instead steps in the legs of her pants.

It’s _ the _ big day, she says in her mind again as she tugs them up, pulling aggressively.

Well, it’s not _ her _big day. So she doesn’t know why her hands feel so shaky as they’re struggling to button up her shirt.

She takes one more look at herself in the mirror once she’s managed to fit all the tiny buttons into their proper holes. 

She doesn’t look ready at all. 

She looks annoyed. Hateful, even. Her face makes her want nothing more than to flop back into her bed and sleep until the wedding is over. Until she can fly home to Atlanta and throw herself back into training for the next season, no distractions. She wants to sleep until she forgets about everything that happens or happened here in Denver.

She picks up her phone and quickly finds the number in she's looking for before she starts to think too much. She presses the dial button. It rings for too long, and Emily considers just hanging up, blaming it as a butt dial. It’s stupid, so stupid to be calling her anyways, she and her wife are probably getting ready as well and Emily has no reason to be feeling this pit in her stomach and a pressure behind her eyes. Her finger hovers over the red button.

But then Kelley picks up.

“Hey, Son, what’s up?” 

Emily can hear her wife’s voice in the background, asking Kelley to zip her up. She wants to hang up. Kelley has more important things to do and she’ll see her at the wedding.

But she manages to croak, mouth feeling dry, “Help me get ready for this?”

“Seriously?” Kelley groans, sounding distracted.

“C’mon, Kel,” she pleads, trying not to seem too desperate, but she thinks it comes through anyway. She sits down on the bed, sinking into the too soft mattress, fiddling with one of the buttons on her shirt.

There’s a pause.

Until Kelley sighs, “Okay. 318, right?”

“Yeah,” Emily breathes out with relief. Before Kelley can say anything else, she hangs up as quickly as possible and throws her phone onto the bedside table.

The only thing she can do is stare at herself in the mirror in front of her.

When she finally hears three sharp raps, followed by a couple more unnecessary insistent ones just because it’s Kelley, Emily can’t leap up any faster to open it.

Kelley grins as Emily opens the door.

“Hey, Son. What’s up?”

Kelley looks good. 

Ready. Confident. She’s wearing a dark green pantsuit, sleeveless, showing off arms that still maintain their muscle. Emily wishes that she brought hers so she could just slip it on and zip it up herself without anyone else, reaching behind her back and blindly grasping for the zipper. Can’t be harder than buttoning up a shirt.

“Nothing much,” she responds as she leads Kelley into her room. She grimaces at how much of a mess it is, shoes and clothes in a pile on top of her suitcase, coffee cups and paper bags half falling out of the too-small trash can.

She stops, turns away from it, and wordlessly hands Kelley her tie.

“First suit?” Kelley asks, a small smile in her voice as she takes it gently, starting to hang it around the collar and tucking it under. 

“No,” Emily chuckles, but it sounds more like a cough. “You know I was never good at ties. Always end up like a freaking sailors knot.”

She’s facing the mirror and can see Kelley and the back of her stupid simple zippered pantsuit. She can’t see Kelley fixing the tie for her, Kelley’s hair blocking it, but she can feel the light touches of her hands and the slight tug of the fabric around her neck. 

She can see herself, though, or mostly just the top of her messy hair. She unslouches her spine and stands up straight, rolling her shoulders back, hoping that something cracks but nothing does. Kelley huffs a little breath of air as a complaint, but remains quiet and focused. Emily can see her eyes now, paired with eyebags that never seem to go away no matter how much she sleeps. Even though she overslept last night. They’re peeking just over the top of Kelley’s head. 

It always surprises her that she’s taller. 

She looks away before she stares too much, swallowing thickly. There’s a stain on the wall, right next to the mirror. She wonders how it got there. She’s been in a lot of hotel rooms. Did they all have stains on the wall? She’s been in this room for a couple of days. How long has it been there for? How did she not notice?

How did she not notice how late it was as she slept?

She scrubs all thoughts of stained walls away in her mind, trying to clear it like those podcasts she listens to before bed tell her to, but new thoughts end up taking the place of old ones. They flood her mind, each one fighting for her attention. She thinks about whether or not she remembered to listen to that podcast last night. She thinks about whether or not she has enough time to do her hair, looking at the comb on the desk. She thinks about whether or not the coffee she just downed on an empty stomach was a good idea or not, glancing over at the cups toppling over the trash can. She thinks about how this is finally Mal’s day.

She thinks about Mal’s bachelorette party, about the lead up to the wedding, about how Lindsey won’t look at her anymore, eyes skipping over her gracefully, about how she seems to have run out of chances, about that night-

“Son,” Kelley says softly. Her hands stop moving.

“Hm?” Emily hums, not looking away from the spot. “You finally done? The knot’s tricky, right?”

Kelley sighs, abandoning the tie.

“You’re crying.”

_ Oh. _

Emily feels her heart rate spike and all of the sudden she realizes how cold and shaky her hands are, awkward at her sides. She glances manically at the mirror, searching. She finds that her face is puffy and splotchy and red and wet and her eyebags are glistening with what must be tears. 

She’s crying and it feels like a car crash she can’t tear her eyes away from.

“I guess I am.”

Kelley places her hand on Emily’s shoulder. “What happened?” And Emily sinks onto the bed, wiping away the tears with the palm of her hand. 

“I fucked up." She looks up and when Kelley doesn't say anything, she forces herself to add, "The night of Mal’s bachelorette party.”

“Okay. How?”

Kelley sits down next to her. Emily can see them both in the mirror, and Kelley stares at her back. Kelley looks good. Put together. Always has. Her hair flows nicely onto her squared shoulders, the slight hint of makeup is tasteful.

“Lindsey. We kissed.”

Kelley waits. It’s unusual and Emily sort of hates it.

“She- she said she loved me, I think. Loves? Loved? Liked? Man, that sounds stupid.”

“Why does that sound stupid?” 

Emily feels the itch of annoyance grow into something dark and bubbling at the back of her throat. She turns and gives Kelley a look, too fast to hold it back, but Kelley doesn’t flinch. Kelley doesn’t step back. Kelley places her hand on her arm and maintains eye contact.

And Emily deflates, sighing out all the air she didn’t know she was holding in.

“Because I’m not sure.”

“Well, did she tell you?”

Emily stops to think, but she knows the answer already. It’s been haunting her since that day, causing sleepless nights in heavy, suffocating hotel covers. 

She likes to think that she knew it the moment after Lindsey left her alone in that kitchen. But even that fact seems shaky.

“Yeah.”

Kelley nods. She doesn’t look surprised either.

“So why are you unsure?”

“I don’t know,” Emily mumbles after a second. It settles in the air too thickly.

She tugs at her tie, loosening it. It’s a little too tight. She plays with the edges of it, feeling it twist around her fingers. It’s a dark blue, the fabric feeling thicker than she expected, a little rough on her fingertips. She tightens it again, feels it around her neck, then loosens it once more, but it’s too loose now. It just hangs, limp. She tightens it once more, just the tiniest amount. 

She realizes as she stops fiddling with it that her mind is blank.

“It doesn’t-“ she starts, and stops. Kelley rubs her arm. Emily takes a deep breath.

“It doesn’t feel real, you know? I guess I spent so long thinking that it was just me that I can’t get past that.” 

She glances inquisitively at Kelley, eyebrows furrowed. Kelley nods.

“And I don’t feel like I’ve done anything to have that, that sort of- I don’t know. I didn’t want to talk to her when we were having sex. And she still wants _ me _, for whatever reason. I just feel-“

She pauses to inhale.

“Feel what?”

Emily’s leaned forward now, elbows on her knees. Her tie hangs over the floor. She exhales.

“It’s just not how it’s supposed to be. The whole timeline of what should've been got messed up and, and now it feels like it’s too late.”

She stops and glances at herself in the mirror. Nothing is too different. Her face still looks puffy and her hair is still a mess. But the tie looks nice, giving her some semblance of put together-ness. She admits that Kelley did a good job with it, though she’d never say it out loud, it would go straight to Kelley’s head.

She wipes away the remnants of tears on her cheek, sighing, “It should’ve happened in Portland. Everything’s just too complicated now.”

Kelley exhales loudly, shaking her head. 

“Well, what about this: would you rather have it not happen at all?”

Her question catches Emily off guard, gaping at Kelley and trying to think of an answer. Kelley laughs then, hearty and lively and maybe a little too loud, but it feels comforting, and Emily chuckles a little too, even though she doesn’t really know what for. It’s wet and crackly at the back of her throat. She sniffles, rubbing her nose. 

“You really loved her, didn’t you?” Kelley says, almost irreverently. She’s grinning still, but Emily notices that her eyebrows are still furrowed in concern, even if it’s meant to be a light question.

But Emily responds quickly, voice hoarse, “I don’t know, I mean, that’s a big word-“

“Son,” Kelley says, firmly. Emily pulls her face into a grimace. “You’re crying. You never cry. At least, not in front of anyone.”

The thought causes Emily to laugh, again, for some reason, bubbling up in her throat.

“Yeah, I guess I loved her.”

Kelley nods and smiles smugly, like she always does when she’s right about something. But she doesn’t say anything, no arrogance, no gloating.

Instead she asks, “And you still do?”

“Yeah. I do.”

It just falls out of her mouth without thinking. It was just _ there _, bouncing around in her mind, ready to be set free. And now it’s hanging heavy, out in the open, bare.

“This is stupid,” Emily says, like she’s spitting something out, something she’s hacked up from a deep cough.

“Hey, don’t say that. Things like this just take time,” Kelley says. And then she snickers, saying under her breath, “You happened to take ten years.”

Emily chuckles hollowly, more of a huff of air than anything. She looks up, briefly, and it surprises her that Kelley is right there to meet her, eyes firm, but kind. No pity.

Emily has had a lot of experience with pity. 

She remembers the look of Mal the morning after a couple of days ago, face pulled into concern when it was supposed to be her day to relax. Emma when Lindsey’s name is mentioned, even though she never told her much anyways, even though she doesn’t see her often enough to do so as Emma’s busy with her own family, her child, her life. Her teammates when they play the Thorns, even the young ones who probably shouldn’t know that information about their captain and the star of the national team, who Emily is terrified will let slip some way or another and Lindsey’s reputation will come crashing down. Her parents when someone asks about a girlfriend, life after soccer, asks the fated question of _ What was it like on the national team? What was it like in Portland? _, as she tries to remember, smoothing the stumbling of her brain with a joke that comes up quicker.

From herself, every time she’d leave from Lindsey’s apartment or hotel room, back to her own. She’d walk in, shut the door behind her quietly, look at herself in the mirror in the new, bright morning light and hate everything she’d see in it, face screwed up in ugly disgust.

But she wouldn’t cry.

Emily sniffles, wiping away a remnant tear slowly tracing its way down her face and Kelley pulls her suddenly into a hug, arms tight.

“You deserve to be loved,” she says into Emily’s hair, firmly, insistently. The same way she says everything else, like she’s always right. 

Emily heaves in a shaky sigh, but it’s hard, because, deep in her chest, it hurts for whatever reason. It hurts more than what Lindsey said to her or could say to her. More than what she could say to herself in the mirror.

“Lindsey definitely loves you. I love you. So many other people love you. Don’t push us away, okay? I know I’ve been busy and we haven’t been as close since I left but that doesn’t mean you can’t talk to me. Or any of our other friends. They’re still there for you.”

Emily nods into Kelley’s shoulder, feeling somehow more tears rush down, streaking across her cheeks and dripping from her chin.

“Maintaining things just takes hard work. You need to put that in.”

Kelley pulls away, holding her at arm's length, jaw set, eyes fierce. Then her face softens. 

“Do something, tonight, will you? Lindsey’s given you another chance. Don’t take even longer,” Kelley chuckles. 

Emily pushes away Kelley’s hands gently, after wiping away tears and snot. 

She glances at herself in the mirror. She looks ugly. Messy. Her hair is even more of a mess and her nose is red and wet. She laughs a little. 

“Yeah. Okay,” she says, nasal and hoarse. Kelley nods. Emily groans and flops onto the bed.

They sit there in silence.

Emily takes her hair out from her bun, shaking it out and combing through the knots with her own hands. It still hurts, but she works through them with her fingers, trying to pull them apart. 

She turns to Kelley, who looks over, eyebrows raised. She places her hand on Kelley’s arm, rubbing once. 

“Thanks, Kel. I missed you. I’m sorry I haven’t been around.”

It’s surprisingly easy to say.

Kelley smiles.

“Yeah, me too.”

—-

Emily likes weddings.

She likes weddings, hate the parties.

She went to a lot as a child, dressed in starched matching dresses with her sister for random cousins in various churches. They were fun, she’d run around with the other kids and wrinkle her clothes and get grass stains right before trying to sit through the ceremony, whispering a little giggle to Emma when the bride and groom would kiss.

She liked the decorations, the flowers, the air of excitement. Hated the dresses but liked waking up early and seeing the whole family get ready, her mom chasing them down to do their hair. They’d always aim to show up on time but end up late. They’d forget something and need to go back, or one of them would throw a tantrum, or someone would wake up later than normal.

It’s just a little different now, Emily thinks, as she mills about with Kelley and her wife. They’ve graciously taken her under their wing after everything, and it makes Emily feel reminiscent of getting ready as a family. She nervously tucks the slightest wisp of hair behind her ear. They had just enough time to pull it back into a more acceptable bun, but a couple of hairs still stubbornly break free. Barely enough time, though, most everyone is already here, finding their seats.

She smiles when Sam rushes over to hug her, leaning down as much as possible with her six foot frame.

“Agh, don’t mess up my hair!” Emily mumbles into Sam’s arms, which are busy squeezing her tight. 

“Oh, sorry!” Sam says, looking properly apologetic. She pulls back, smoothing out Emily’s shoulders and sleeves worriedly. 

“Nah, get back in here,” Emily laughs, ignoring how raw her throat is still from the crying session at the hotel. She pulls Sam into a side hug, reaching on her tiptoes. 

“Well, you look great, messy hair or not,” Sam says decisively.

Emily chuckles a little. She’s about to say something about it, something a little bit funny but never as funny as she’d like it to be, but she bites her tongue, smiling, “Thanks. You look stunning,” reaching up on her tiptoes to smack an obnoxious kiss on Sam’s cheek. Sam rolls her eyes, and Emily laughs, “No, I mean it!” Sam shoves her away. 

"Am I late?" Emily asks, motioning to the rows of seats mostly full already.

"No, no! I was just waiting for you. Pat's over there holding a seat for us!” Sam waves off in the distance, in the direction of what is presumably Pat, waving back.

“Us?” Emily asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Gotta use each other as a tissue, right?” Sam says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. 

_ Is it? _ , Emily wonders.

She rolls with it, joking, “Oh, my bad. Of course. Just don’t stain this with your snot, please. It took ages to remove the one from last time.”

Sam rolls her eyes. “Right, like I’m not the one who blows out full packs of tissues.” Emily laughs, not denying it, and then Sam laughs, and it takes Emily a second to realize that they’re walking somewhere, to an already packed row with two empty seats at the end.

Sam heaves a sigh and starts to awkwardly ask people to step aside as she almost trips over their legs and bags. Emily laughs a little as she very nearly falls flat on her face. She flashes what she hopes looks like an appropriately apologetic face and the old woman glaring at her.

“You couldn’t bother to save us aisle seats?” Sam asks once they reach Pat, looking on at the spectacle with amusement.

”You’re welcome,” he says, giving Sam a kiss on the cheek. Emily is about to sit down and look away, until Pat says, with a wide grin, “Hey, Sonnett, nice to see you, it’s been a while! Looking sharp.”

Emily’s eyebrows shoot up, but she quickly smooths them back down. “You too, man,” she says with a smile after a second, getting into her seat and trying to pull her legs in. “And yeah, it’s been too long! Should go over to you guys more, maybe you can teach me to be a Masshole again.” He laughs and Emily feels like things are normal again.

As she sits, she catches Kelley’s eye from across the room. They’re probing, eyebrows furrowed in concern. She’s asking, and Emily does her best to push back the tendrils of annoyance in her mind, shaking her head. 

“I’ll be fine,” she mouths, waving Kelley off with a little smile. Kelley nods once. Emily decides to throw in a “Thanks, mom,” and Kelley rolls her eyes with a smile of her own. Emily knows that she understands.

She turns back to Sam, who seems to be narrating everything as everyone gets in order, trying to whisper but failing, as she always does. Emily is reminded of sitting on the bench with her years ago. Maybe even the 2016 Olympics, relegated to watch everyone else. She would laugh at Sam’s voice in her ear and putting in her own little quips as she kept her eyes glued to the field. Mostly to a specific player on the field, if she’s being completely honest.

She realizes that hasn’t happened for a long while.

Sam taps her on the shoulder, pointing, and Emily snaps out of her reverie.

“Dansby looks so nervous, look at him. That’s sweet, I was freaking out on my wedding day, in a good way, obviously, but man, was I sweating bullets. And it was December! It was so fucking cold, my bridesmaids were freezing, I mean, they weren’t sweating, they had these dresses with the thinnest fabric and wanted to kill me. But you know, I love the dresses Mal chose for her’s, like, Andi and Lindsey and Rose look amazing-” 

Sam stops.

“Oh, I didn’t- I mean-“ she stumbles, looking completely apologetic. Emily puts a smile on.

“It's fine,” she says, as irreverently as she can manage, placing her hand on Sam’s arm. She glances back at the line of bridesmaids, refusing to focus on just one as her eyes jump back and forth. “You’re right, they look good. Love the color.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Rose saying something to Lindsey under her breath, snickering. Lindsey rolls her eyes first, but then Rose smiles and adds on and Lindsey is struggling to hold back giggles, rubbing her eyes and shaking her head. Emily feels her stomach churn.

She misses her. 

Before she can tear her gaze away, Lindsey looks over with those blue eyes that seem to always see through Emily. Her hair frames her face and she’s gripping a bouquet of white roses, baby’s breath, and pink carnations to go with her faded pink dress, simple and elegant, almost a warm dusty color. 

But her eyes look cold and icy. She stares straight ahead and right through. There’s nothing on her face that Emily can pick apart, nothing that seems out of the ordinary to an outsider, but Emily has a gut feeling that the gears are turning inside her head. 

Lindsey has always worn her heart on her sleeve. Emily has always admired that part of her. The way she can speak and believe in her heart that what she’s saying is true. The way she keeps going, fierce and determined. How she doesn’t run from anything, instead facing it head on with a steely disposition.

Lindsey takes a simple breath, eyes still focused. It’s terrifying. Emily’s stomach dips like she’s free falling and her chest tightens up, like she’s in the last couple of minutes of overtime chasing an equalizer. Or chasing even just one consolation goal in the waning seconds of a to-be blowout loss, always running. Looking for something to prove, maybe. Chasing and running and moving because she can’t think about anything else, because she doesn’t know any other way. Until she’s exhausted and at her breaking point, until she loses all her breath and doubles over, heaving out her lungs, giving up.

Lindsey looks away, angling her whole body to the side.

Sam pulls at her shoulder repeatedly. “Hey,” she says in her quietest whisper. “Hey, it’s Mal.”

Emily turns.

“It’s Mal,” she repeats under her breath, standing up.

She looks beautiful.

She’s walking on the arm of her father down the aisle in a white dress. It’s a picture perfect scene. Emily realizes that she’s been there since Mal dreamed about it sheepishly, seeming like a far-off fantasy. She was there on the phone when Mal started to excitedly plan, fresh off of her engagement. She’s been friends with Mal since she was a teen, and even though Emily was a good bit older, she was there when they both felt like children in the face of their future.

She’s getting married now.

Mal walks up to the altar. She kisses her father on the cheek as he walks to his seat, wiping away tears. She’s beaming radiantly at Dansby, who looks like he’s near tears himself. Sam is already there, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue, gripping Emily’s arm so hard that she’s starting to lose circulation.

Emily remembers one wedding from when she was a child. It was her older cousin’s, the one that babysat her and Emma from time to time. She was the only one she actually liked to talk to, kicking around a ball with her and Emma at family parties. Emily was about fourteen, at the age where the spectacle had worn off, where she’s been to enough weddings and seen them divorce a year later, or stay together and fight, or give birth to annoying children, to sit there and be skeptical of all the grand celebrations. It was her favorite cousin, though, and she sat up straighter, trying to force herself to think good thoughts and feel genuine happiness.

Emma had no trouble, though. She never did. She always looked forward to the day she got dressed up in lacy white and walked down the aisle with their father. And she cried when they kissed, gripping Emily’s arm the same way Sam is doing now, using Emily’s sweater to wipe her tears. Emily made fun of her for it relentlessly, bothering her all throughout the reception, the ceremony, the car ride home. 

The most memorable part was when they’d gotten home, late at night, after Emily’s last snide remark. Emily won’t forget how Emma turned to her and said, “You’re just _ so _ mad that no one will like you enough to marry you.” She then shut the door to the bathroom in Emily’s face, about to take an extra long shower as Emily sulked.

And Emily was fine with that, mostly. She doubts Emma even remembers saying that. A lot of people in her life have done the same thing. And she was fine with it in high school, as her friends started to tease her about it too. In college, even as she made Pinterest boards for her future wedding with her loving husband. And afterwards too, baby clothes, children in matching outfits, recipes to make. She was fine in her adult life too, more because she was simply used to it. She doesn’t know any other way. She focuses on work. She likes living alone. She tried not to think about Lindsey, about pining and waiting, about wanting anything at all.

And it wasn’t too bad.

She realizes as Mal and Dansby laugh and stumble through their vows that she lied to herself. She realizes, as she feels a pain in her heart watching the scene before her, that she might just resent the fact that it comes so easy to others. 

She’s so _ lonely. _

The simple fact hits her square in the chest, knocks the wind out of her.

Mal and Dansby are adorable. Mal slides the ring on Dansby’s hand, her own shaking noticeably, and Mal is so young and she’s giggling like this is hilarious and crying like it’s extremely fulfilling, and that’s what gets Emily, feeling the waterworks turn on and her eyes well up.

She glances over at Lindsey. Lindsey was already looking at her, unabashedly staring at her instead of the happy couple, and Emily doesn’t know what to think about that. If anything, Lindsey looks just as surprised, her eyebrows raised. It seems like her guard is down. The icy stare is gone, instead her shining eyes and flushed face are open. Challenging, but welcoming. Waiting.

Emily just stares back, cheers erupting among them as Mal and Dansby kiss. She’s not watching. Her chest hurts. Maybe that’s lingering pain from her realization just seconds ago, but she knows it’s not. 

Lindsey looks beautiful.

She smiles, just a little, gesturing with her chin towards the newlyweds. 

But Lindsey doesn’t smile back. Instead, her face suddenly shifts, jaw set and eyes cold again. She wipes her eye once, and even that seems cooly purposeful, hand and arm moving efficiently, smoothly. Emily’s smile drops.

Lindsey turns away and smiles with everyone else, and Emily is left staring at where her face used to be.

—-

Emily gets swept up in the celebrations. 

It’s a big crowd, both Mal and Dansby have a lot of friends. There’s people from baseball, people from soccer, people from neither at all. It’s easy to get lost in the crowd. Emily hangs by Kelley and her Atlanta friends’ sides. She has fun. She laughs along and jokes with them, and it’s nice to feel like the center of attention in a good way. It’s nice to hear them laugh and jump in on their own and it’s easy like it always is. It’s easy when Lindsey is halfway across the room. She’s laughing too with those dimples, talking to people who know of her, but no one that she knows, really.

She finds herself getting a lot of neck stretches in during the dinner. She should go get a massage, maybe acupuncture, even though she doesn’t like needles.

But then Lindsey would glance over and Emily would panic, taking a too large bite and hastily swallowing it down. It gets stuck in her throat, a lingering itch long after.

Which is how she finds herself at the bar, washing it down, grimacing.

“Sonnett. Just go talk to Lindsey.”

Emily whips her head around mid-gulp, finding Rose’s knowing smirk.

“I wasn’t- I’m not- I - I don’t want to talk to her.”

Rose raises an eyebrow. She always manages to look like everything is hilarious to her, but you can never know why it’s so funny.

“When did you even get here? You gave me a heart attack,” Emily coughs out. Her drink almost went down the wrong pipe.

Rose smiles innocently. “Funny, I thought your heart would be crushed too hard to even work by now, you know, when Lindsey gave you the cold shoulder at the ceremony-”

Emily should’ve known better. She should’ve known not to do anything when Rose Lavelle is right there.

“Oh my god,” she groans. “Rosemary Kathleen Lavelle. Please, shut up.”

“That was _ rough, _” Rose continues dramatically, as if Emily hadn’t just full-named her. “I mean, I felt the pain.”

“You deserve it.” 

Rose gasps in mock offense. “Hey, I’m trying to help you here!” Emily just stares at her, incredulous look on her face. Rose holds it, big blue eyes almost intimidating, at least until her eyebrows quiver and she bursts into giggles, doubling over.

Emily feels the urge to giggle too, mouth trying to pull up into a smile. But she pushes it back for now, forcing the corners down to the best of her ability.

“Did Lindsey send you?” she sighs.

Rose stops laughing, lifting herself back up and pushing back her hair. 

“What, you think I have ulterior motives or something?” 

“Yes.”

“Well, Lindsey hasn’t talked to me about you. And I don’t have ulterior motives,” Rose says factually. Like Emily is stupid for ever thinking so, or even daring to think so. And Emily does feel stupid.

She pushes past it, crossing her arms. “Okay. Did Kelley send you?” 

Rose pulls a face, almost laughing now. “No, why the fuck would I ever do what she tells me to? Sonnett, I’m here on my own.”

Emily opens her mouth to say something, then stops, trying to decipher Rose’s expression, trying to think of what responses Rose has loaded up, what the little narrowing of her eyes means. What the game is.

Rose is a good liar, which was very useful. The two of them had it down to a science. Rose was always pushed to lead the lie out, expertly crafting a story on the spot, buttering them up until it seemed impossible that her lie wasn’t the truth. But since two heads are better than one, Emily was the backup for the tricky ones, coming in to seal the deal for a particularly pissed off Kelley, or Becky (a real challenge), or Lindsey, who had developed a suspicion for Rose, but for some reason, never Emily. Emily, who used to know how to sweet talk her, how to make her lower her guard, how to make her believe anything she said. 

They probably would’ve done something like that here, Emily thinks, if things were different. Nothing too big. Just for sentimental value. Mal was always a good target. 

Emily sometimes misses it. 

She tries to be a good leader, for what it’s worth, joking around with the kids on her team, lifting them up when they need it, always there for a smile. She wants to be the ‘cool’ captain, and sometimes succeeds, invited into small parts of the plans. But she misses the games, being a part of them, orchestrating them. She misses feeling like she could do anything. Having the safety of invincibility, knowing that she could work her way back up no matter what happened.

She knows that she doesn’t really think that Rose is lying. She doesn’t think there’s any game to play. And she doesn’t know if that makes her feel better or not. 

She takes a sip, lifting up her head and tilting back, feeling the coldness wash down her throat. When she levels her head again, Rose is staring at her, lifting an eyebrow.

“Both of you are massively idiotic.”

“Jeez, thanks, Rosie,” she says dryly, letting her grimace edge somewhere into a grin. It’s become too much work to hold it back.

Rose sighs. “You know, you say that, but I swear, Sonnett. I’m gonna take matters into my own hands soon.” 

And Rose looks so tiny, saying the last part with a glint in her eye and with a specific tone of voice, and maybe Emily snorts, just a little bit, letting a giggle escape her.

“What the hell would that mean? An intervention?” Rose pouts, and Emily grins even wider, knowing she got her. “Oh, I know, are you going to push Linds into me? You know there’s no way you’re gonna be able to do that. You’re a little twig. She’d run you over like a steamroller.”

Emily feels somewhat proud, basking in the glory for just a second, but Rose just narrows her eyes, smiling. 

“So, Linds, huh?”

_ Oh. She did say that, didn’t she. _

“I always call her that,” Emily bites back, feeling heat rise up to her cheeks. Rose just leaves it be, to Emily’s surprise, rolling her eyes.

“First of all,” she says sagely, “My plans are _ so _ much smarter than that. You’d be lucky to get one of my interventions. 90% success rate and counting. 10% is Wilma and food, obviously.”

“Second of all. If not now, then when? Whose wedding is next to wait for? Mine? I mean, I did catch the bouquet,” she adds proudly.

“You basically ripped it out of a poor girl’s hands.”

“It’s not my fault Mal has bad aim!”

“Oh, so you got Mal to throw it your way?”

“You know what, you’re not invited anymore,” Rose snipes. “I don’t need a loser ruining my day.” Emily opens her mouth to argue, but Rose shushes her.

“Anyways!” Rose interrupts. “After mine, well, let’s just say that it will definitely _ not _be yours. So next is Lindsey. And if you don’t fix this, you might not even be invited.” 

Rose swirls her drink. “And usually I’d love to hold that kind of thing over your head, but this one feels too mean, even for me. So, figure it out.”

Emily smiles sweetly. “Wow, what an honor. I feel _ so _ supported.”

“What can I say, I’m good at what I do.”

Emily scoffs. Rose just raises her drink in response, a cheeky smile on her face, eyes crinkled like she’s on the verge of bursting out into laughter, like it always is.

She smiles wide and clinks her glass with Rose. She throws the drink back. She needs it after that.

Rose takes a small sip. “By the way, you should look over there,” she says calmly, all while smiling mischievously.

“What?” Rose just gestures her drink off to the side, looking far too pleased with herself. Emily’s heart starts to race, desperately searching through the crowd of people to find who Rose could possibly be talking about.

There’s really only one person it could be, she realizes as she stares, heart pounding, at blonde hair and strong arms for the hundredth time that day.

“Oh. Speak of the devil,” she mumbles, feeling her mouth go dry. 

Lindsey is pointedly not looking at her, which she supposes is fair. She’s ordering a drink and tucking a piece of hair behind her ear, an easy smile on her face, dimples in her flushed cheeks. But Emily can tell that there’s something, her eyes are too focused, while her smile is too wide.

She wants to figure it out.

“Go. Please?” she asks, pushing Rose aside.

“But I just got here!” Rose whines.

“Lavelle!”

“Fine, you’re so demanding.”

As Rose starts to leave, though, Emily grabs her arm.

“Thanks, Rosie,” she says.

Rose rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling. “Yeah, yeah, okay,” she says, before peeling off Emily’s fingers from her arm and flouncing away, off to torture someone else.

Emily takes a deep breath. Lindsey downs some of her drink. Emily thinks that she’s ready.

She taps her on the shoulder lightly. Lindsey whips around suddenly, she’s always had good reflexes, and all that is on her face is surprise, open and slightly flushed, eyes wild, just like at the ceremony. Like she’s scared, almost. Emily is so confused that she forgets what she has to say, mouth agape.

But Lindsey’s face quickly turns to anger, anyways, eyes narrowing and lips pressed into a line. Composing herself right before Emily again. She raises her eyebrow, challenging, waiting. 

Emily opens and closes her mouth. She swallows roughly.

“Lindsey, can I talk to you for a sec?” she manages to force out, voice hoarse, mouth quickly drying out.

Lindsey turns away, but she says, “Fine.” Emily considers it a win either way.

“I’m sorry,” she says to Lindsey’s shoulder, the side of her nose, the tiny tendrils of brown hair that hang at the nape of her neck, the little part where it curves in her shoulders that Emily knows that she’s kissed thousands of times before. 

“I know. You kept saying that.” Lindsey raises her glass to her lips.

“I-“ Emily starts. Lindsey doesn’t move. Emily notices that Lindsey’s second piercing is in, a simple gold stud. The one she got on a whim after she broke up with Russell, texting Emily about it randomly at 12 am. Emily promptly rushed over to Lindsey’s apartment, waiting on the couch for her to get home, wanting to be the first one to see the results, to be the first one to comfort her. That seems so long ago now. 

She sighs, “I know. I know. But I really am.”

Lindsey always stands straight and tall, chin up. Emily has seen it in tunnels before a game, Lindsey always ahead of her, always staring at her back. Lindsey would square her shoulders before walking out, a perfectly timed step for a seasoned captain, a star, a professional.

But she’s slumping now. Emily knows that their height difference isn’t more than just two or three inches, but never really believed it. It finally feels that way now.

“Okay.”

Emily feels a surge of confidence rush through her, hot and exciting and terrifying.

“And- and I guess you already know this too. But I-“ 

Lindsey whips her head around to stare right at her and Emily feels all of that courage rush right out, legs left feeling like jelly. She finds herself laughing nervously. “God, why is this so hard to say?”

Lindsey’s eyebrows furrow a little more. “Don’t force yourself on my account,” she says coolly.

Emily chuckles, tucking a stray hair behind her ear, “Oh, don’t worry, Rose already did. And Kelley. She’s a massive pain in the ass, more so than usual. I think she misses our antics-“

Lindsey turns away again.

From the sliver of face that Emily can see, Lindsey looks flushed red, taking a sip slowly. Emily feels her own face heat up, her palms probably dripping with sweat at this point as she fiddles with them behind her back. She watches intently as Lindsey’s hand puts down her glass. The white nail polish from a couple of days ago is slightly chipping away, not enough to redo it, but noticeable. At the top of the nail on her index finger, peeling away slightly.

“Linds?”

"Jesus, Sonnett,” she snarls, spinning around to face her. “Don’t give me this back and forth shit, okay? I’m sick of it. I’m so fucking sick of it.”

Emily takes a step back.

“It’s fine if you don’t- I- I’m fine if you don’t. You don’t need to come and try to fix this because you feel like doing something reckless that you’ll regret, and disappear again. Or because Kelley or Rose had to _ bully _ you into it.”

Lindsey stops and takes a breath. 

Her eyes are so blue, always pale like ice, but it feels like they’re burning into Emily. They’re blue like the base of a fire, curling up into gentle flames or raging into a bonfire. Lindsey’s fire feels like the latter. Emily can feel the anger, the vitriol, the hatred, all radiating off of her. 

It oddly reminds her of the moments the Thorns lose and the camera focuses on Lindsey, near tears, pissed off, aggressively straightening her ponytail. And Emily tries to feel secret joy as she watches it on her TV, but just feels sad and angry. Then she turns it off, and goes to bed.

It’s the first time she’s seen it off the field in a long while.

“We’re not friends anymore, okay?” Lindsey says, somehow sickly sweet and vicious at the same time. “Are you happy? _ You _ wanted this.”

“What, no, Linds, that’s not what I meant-,” Emily stammers, reaching out to her arm.

Lindsey shoulders her off roughly. “I know what you meant.” She swallows. “I know you. Still do.” 

Then her eyes harden, jaw set, voice smooth and steady. “At least, enough to know that you’ll get cold feet, as always.”

That cuts. 

Emily pushes out, “Lindsey, I lo-”

“Sure,” Lindsey interrupts calmly. And just like that time Lindsey so expertly stripped her of the ball in their last game, blazing through the rest of the field like it was nothing, Emily is left breathless and embarrassed and a little bit in awe.

Or after that first time in Portland, the night of Tobin and Christen’s wedding. So vulnerable, that Portland skyline she knew so well behind them in those floor to ceiling windows she missed so much. Both naked, heaving, sobering up, and waiting to see what the other would do.

And Lindsey would always break the silence first.

She now moves to pick up her glass, raising it in the air. It’s a jerky motion, a little awkward, contents almost spilling out of the rim, the surface tension just holding them back. And all Emily can do is watch.

“Here’s to _ love _,” Lindsey says, smiling grimly and voice cracking just the slightest, before she downs it all.

\---

Mal and Dansby are disgustingly cute.

Emily wants to look away. If the ceremony was anything, the dance is worse. Mal was never a good dancer, and she stumbles a bit, but Dansby manages to turn it into something good. And then they laugh, and look at each other with hearts in their eyes, and Mal whispers something in his ear and they laugh some more. 

It’s exhausting.

She peers over the edge of the crowd, stuck somewhere in the middle. She kind of wishes that she wore her heels, Dansby’s baseball friends are really tall and the work her calves are doing to get an occasional glimpse shouldn't be happening during the off-season.

And it’s hot. So hot. She’s crushed by people she doesn’t know and she feels the sweat and fly-aways clinging to the back of her neck.

So maybe she’s mad. Maybe Lindsey is laughing it up with some random Denver friend like she didn’t just explode just minutes before. Maybe she’s feeling guilty for being mad when it’s the most special moment of one of her closest friend’s life. 

She can feel the hair clinging to her cheeks now. Mal and Dansby have just finished their dance and everyone claps and cheers around them as Mal asks her father to dance with her. She smiles with her lips closed and claps for a couple of seconds before reaching up to undo her bun. She struggles to pull the hair tie over it. When she does, though, she shakes out the rest of her hair with her hands, pulling tightly and smoothing the fly-aways in.

Someone bumps into her a little bit. She loses her grip and smooths it out again.

She tugs the hair tie over her wrist. She wants to get this done as quickly as possible before she can head on over to her own friends, the ones Lindsey doesn’t know and couldn’t care less about. 

People clap and cheer around her. She’s not exactly sure what for.

She tries to pull it over the bun. She can feel some hair already slipping out.

_ It’s always about you, _ a voice whispers at the back of her head. _ Stop making this about you. Why are you mad? Lindsey was right. _

The elastic snaps in her hands, and she kind of wants to throw a tantrum. 

It’s so loud and so hot and everything around her is so nice and she just needs to get out, away from Kelley who is glancing over at her like she has been all night, babying her like Emily needs it, and maybe she does. Away from Lindsey, who is decidedly not looking for her, who doesn’t need to because she has her own new life and new friends and new skills. She pushes past the tall baseball men and random Denver girls she doesn’t know and out of the crowd. She knows she looks weird. She runs her hands through her hair as much as she can as she tries to find the bathroom, turning corners blindly. She’s almost running, feeling the adrenaline course through her veins. She’s glad that she’s not wearing heels now.

She pushes the door to the bathroom roughly.

Standing in the doorway, she realizes that she doesn’t really know why she came here in the first place.

She sighs and turns on the faucet, leaning down to splash cold water on her face, screwing up her eyes. She shuts off the faucet. The cold water runs down her face to the sink, making a noise. It vaguely annoys her and she wipes it off with her sleeve. 

She looks up to see her reflection in the mirror. Her face looks more red. Some water got onto her tie, the front of her shirt, the cuffs of her sleeves. It runs down her forearm, and she tries to pat it dry even though she knows that it makes it all look worse. 

She takes some sort of vindictive happiness in how _ ugly _she looks. 

Her hair isn’t much better than how it was this morning. It sticks out on one end and is flat on the other. She’s dripping with water, splashes on her shirt. 

It’s kind of funny.

She smiles at herself in the mirror forcefully, a cheeky grin, all teeth. The kind she uses for pictures. She never really noticed how much it looks like a grimace, how squinty her eyes are. Was it always like that? She doesn’t remember it looking so crazed before, how it reaches her eyes a little too much. Emily softens it, closing her mouth, feeling her cheeks ache. When she does that, she just looks sad.

She drops the smile, smoothing out her hair. Tries tucking it behind both ears, but it makes her look like a dork. 

She exhales, blowing her red and splotchy cheeks out like a pufferfish.

It’s funny. 

She chuckles to herself a bit, chin tucked and moving to wipe her hands with the nice paper towels, the kind that almost feel like cloth. She tries to get as much water as she can off of her hands, sleeves, and the front of her shirt. It’s mostly useless for the clothes. She tries to shoot the paper towel into the trash can but it bounces off the rim. She walks over, picks it up, and puts it in calmly.

She pushes open the door, letting it swing shut behind her as she walks back, retracing her steps. Her hair falls in front of her face as she looks down at her feet moving, somehow knowing where to go. She tucks it behind her right ear.

As she nears, she notices that the music is still playing, soft and muted now. Emily stops for a moment, raising her head to look on from a distance.

Couples have taken the floor with less people crowded around it. She can see through them, finally. Various teammates, parents, aunts and uncles, some with more skill than others. Mal and Dansby are in the center, in their own little world.

Lindsey’s off to the side, alone. Watching all of her friends with the smallest of smiles on her face. 

She takes a deep breath and strides over, stopping right next to her, just slightly behind.

“Lindsey,” she says softly, fiddling with her hands.

There’s a silence, like Lindsey is waiting for her to say something, not even looking over. Emily opens her mouth. She closes it.

Lindsey sighs. “Didn’t I make my point clear?” 

“Well, you know I always had trouble with getting the point,” Emily huffs out in a dry laugh. Lindsey doesn’t move, eyes trained on the dance floor.

“Yeah, that’s for sure.”

Lindsey doesn’t sound mad. She sounds tired.

Emily turns back to the couples dancing, rocking on her feet, side by side with Lindsey. She takes them all in again, sees Sam dancing with Rose on her tippy toes, Pat taking a video off to the side. They’re all laughing. She sees Kelley giving eyes to her wife. They’re so into it, Emily just knows that they’ve taken date night couples dancing classes, and she reminds herself to tease Kelley about it later. She sees Mal and Dansby, still swaying in the back, surrounded by all of their friends. It doesn’t make Emily want to throw up anymore. 

She glances back at Lindsey. She’s blinking a lot. Emily feels her chest ache. She inhales.

“I didn’t come here to talk, anyways,” she says, all in one go.

Lindsey furrows her eyebrows. “So what is it?”

Emily turns to Lindsey.

“Wanna dance?”

Lindsey jerks her head towards her, eyes wild, face flushed. “What?” she asks, 

“Would you like to dance? Out there. With, uh, with me.”

Emily sees Lindsey’s throat bob as she swallows.

“Because I’d like to,” Emily adds, her own throat feeling dry. She clears it.

She turns back to the floor, feeling her face flush. She lets her eyes roam over all the people and couples she doesn’t know under the hot lights, swaying with the music. Emily feels it under her feet and she’s glad again that she didn’t wear heels. Feels more grounded. Tethered. She always tended to trip in heels anyways.

Mal glances over towards her, beaming wide, as bright as her dress. Emily smiles back, close lipped and softly. 

“Okay.”

Emily whips around.

“Okay,” Lindsey says, under her breath, but more insistently this time. Emily nods, breathing in and out, and in and out again.

She holds out her hand. 

Lindsey takes it gently at first, resting her hand just on top of Emily’s, then curls her fingers, encasing Emily’s own in her palm. Emily remembers how big Lindsey’s hands are, how soft.

Emily breathes in and out. She leads Lindsey, doesn’t pull, and lets their hands, now wrapped around each other, drop down below their waists. She feels calm. The lights are warm, gentle, not harsh like she thought it would be. Lindsey looks terrified. Emily is too, but she can’t think about it now. Her hands are too sweaty. Maybe still wet from the bathroom. She lets go, just for a brief second to wipe them on her pants.

Something flashes across Lindsey’s face that makes Emily sick. She pushes it back and spins on her heel to place her hand on Lindsey’s shoulder and it goes away, just like that. Emily inhales.

Lindsey moves to put her hand on her waist. She’s watching them intently, like it takes all of her focus to touch Emily, and Emily watches her chew the inside of her cheek. She can’t think right now. Lindsey seems to be doing it for her. Like before, it’s almost a ghost of a touch. 

Then Emily feels Lindsey’s solid hand on her waist. She exhales and looks down towards their feet, moving each one by one together, swaying to the rhythm. 

Emily can barely hear the music.

She realizes that she doesn't know how to slow dance. 

It’s different from _ dancing _, at least, the kind she tries her best to do. It’s well, slow. Steady. Intimate. Romantic music and swelling violins fade into the background, and it’s all hazy, the soft lights reflecting off of the floor where Emily watches her feet make the steps out of her control. It’s the good kind of hazy, Emily thinks. She can’t help but feel like this is a dream she’ll wake up from, a warm dream that sticks with you throughout the rest of the day, making your chest hurt with every detail you start to forget as the day goes on, until it’s just a feeling.

She doesn’t think she’ll forget this, though.

She looks up. Mal’s eyes are already there as she sways with Dansby. She offers a small smile. Emily gives one back, bigger, all teeth. She wonders what she looks like for a second but pushes it aside to mouth, “You look beautiful.”

Mal mouths, “You too.”

Emily rolls her eyes, scoffing lightly, but she smiles wider all the same. "I can't believe you're married," she continues. 

Mal shakes her head, exhaling. Emily laughs. "Me neither," Mal says back. 

She then motions her chin to Lindsey, a questioning look in her eye. Emily shrugs, feeling heat rush up to her face. She motions to Dansby with her own chin, smiling a little. Mal beams and chuckles, glancing to her dance partner. _ Her husband _, Emily reminds herself. Dansby says something, leaning down to whisper in Mal’s ear, and she laughs some more, bright enough that Emily can hear it where she is.

Mal gets on her tiptoes to press a kiss into Dansby’s cheek, and Emily turns her gaze down to the floor.

She realizes that her cheeks hurt a little bit, and she knows it’s a real ache by the way it settles warmly. She widens her smile to her shoes, watching them move.

Lindsey sniffles.

Emily jerks her head up to find Lindsey wiping tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. She’s looking up at the ceiling and away from Emily, blinking quickly, face flushed under the dimmed lights. Emily feels blood rush up to her own face as she gapes at Lindsey, frozen. Her feet stop moving and they’re standing there, arms entangled, hands still touching each other.

Lindsey chuckles when she notices that Emily has stopped, shaking her head in what Emily would have interpreted as malice but she’s too tired to do so now. She feels the urge to lift one of her hands, now resting softly on Lindsey’s bare shoulder, up a couple of inches. Cup Lindsey’s soft cheek and wipe away the tears with her thumb, capturing them under it and absorbing them for her. Make it all disappear.

But in her imagination, Lindsey wouldn’t flinch away. So she swallows it down.

“I’m sorry,” she chokes out, and means it. She feels tears start to prick, just when she thought there weren’t any more. Lindsey nods, but she looks away again.

Emily hates not being able to meet her eyes.

“I have self esteem issues.”

She doesn’t know where it comes from. She bites her lip immediately after, as if it would hold back anything that seems to be coming up after it. Lindsey seems to not know where it came from either, barking out a laugh. She exhales a little after it hangs in the air too thickly, gaining her composure again. She sniffles again.

“I thought you said no talking?” Lindsey asks, a wry smile on her face as she rubs the corner of her eye.

“I don’t have to. Talk, I mean. We can just be silent, or you can go, it’s-”

Lindsey shakes her head. Emily shuts her mouth.

“It- It kind of distracts me,” she mumbles, eyes averted, and Emily understands. 

“I’ll do it quietly.” 

Lindsey puts her hand back on Emily’s waist. Emily inhales. They start moving again.

“I don’t think I’m enough sometimes. A lot. On the field, in life, just in general. I don’t know why, kind of happened as a kid, got worse as I grew older and the stakes grew higher. Got worse when they lowered too. When I, uh, left. But I thought I handled it and I guess not.”

Emily glances at Lindsey’s face. She’s looking down at her hands again. Emily sways to the left and Lindsey follows.

“I never thought you could feel the same,” she mumbles. Lindsey chews the inside of her cheek, setting her jaw it’s like she does before every game, staring hard at her cleats before unleashing it all.

“It was, well, impossible for a while. For me, for you, for us, you know and I know that. And I guess it was true for so long that I just got used to it. I was sad, and angry, and selfish, and- and I couldn’t realize when it had changed.”

She sucks in a breath.

“Truth is, I’m lonely. I push people away because- I don’t know. I used the fact that we’re all, or _ you’re _all, so busy as an excuse. I guess I couldn’t stand feeling like I missed out. But I forgot how good it feels to be with y’all.” 

She pauses.

“With you.”

Lindsey looks up. She meets Emily’s eyes with her own, blue and clear and shining, and Emily wants to kiss her. She doesn’t. She moves in a little closer, watching her feet taking two tentative steps, and Lindsey’s hands instinctively wrap a little tighter around her waist. Emily feels like she’s going to trip but Lindsey holds her steady. 

Emily exhales into her shoulder, “I’m terrified.” Lindsey’s hands shift on her back. Emily screws her eyes shut, resting her forehead in the crook of Lindsey’s neck. 

“I’m scared of how much I feel about you still, all these years later, scared that I messed it up. I’m so fucking scared that you’ll be with me and realize you deserve someone better in the end, because, you know,” she pauses, turning her head to the side. “You’re you.”

“What does that mean?”

Emily lifts her head up. Lindsey gazes at her, unwavering. Softly. The light dully reflects off of the streaks the tears have left.

“I don’t know,” Emily mumbles. “I guess it doesn’t mean anything.”

Lindsey frowns a bit and her whole face shifts, glancing up to the distance. Emily wonders if it’s Mal she’s looking towards, or Rose. Sam. Maybe even Kelley. If they’re telling her something, that she doesn’t have to do this, to leave, to-

She sets her jaw and pushes those thoughts aside. 

“But, Linds,” she says insistently, taking her hand off of Lindsey’s shoulder to tuck a piece of hair behind her own ear. Lindsey turns her attention to her and Emily swallows, staring right back. “I love you.”

Lindsey inhales. Her hands grip Emily’s waist now.

“I always have. For so long it’s honestly kind of pathetic. And I know I’ve said this so many times it starts to lose it’s meaning, but I really am sorry. For making you think I didn’t love you, keeping you waiting, all of it. I just have a funny way of showing things, I guess. But you know that.

“You know almost everything about me and it used to make me so angry that you seemed to always _ get it _, even when I didn’t, but now I just- I’m tired. You were always there and I should’ve appreciated that. Been there for you. Because, you know-” 

Emily smiles softly, looking at the ground. “You’re my best friend.”

She doesn’t bother looking at Lindsey for that one, just rests her cheek on Lindsey’s shoulder instead of her forehead, facing her neck, breathing in and out, in and out. It feels new but familiar, skin on skin. Lindsey holds her tight, hands splayed across her shoulder blades now, wrapped around each other.

She closes her eyes and lets herself sway gently with Lindsey, wrapped around her, breathing in unison.

“I loved you then, too,” Lindsey whispers into her hair, cheek pressed against the top of Emily’s head. Emily freezes. “It was never true.” 

“Well, maybe not exactly that,” Lindsey chuckles drily. She exhales, and Emily can feel her hair blow with it. She focuses on that as much as she can.

“I was- I was scared to show it for a while. And after, you know, I realized, I wanted to change that, which is why- I don’t know.”

Lindsey’s voice is low and soft, reverberating. Emily can feel it vibrate through Lindsey’s chest and through her own.

“When you left I missed you so much. So fucking much. Maybe I took it too far because I felt like I needed to. I should be sorry too.”

Lindsey pushes Emily away from her shoulder, holding her out at arm's length. She lifts one hand from Emily’s waist, leaving it feeling cold and empty, bare. Lindsey brushes the loose hair behind Emily’s ear, turning her cheek slightly, making their eyes lock. Emily feels chills go through her body.

“But I wanted you. I always did. You were always loved. Even when you messed up. And when you were on a different team, or, or when you aren’t on the national team, and when you are.” 

Lindsey pauses, watching Emily’s face, and blinks once. Her eyes are so blue.

“Jesus, it hurt to have you push me away. I’m lonely too, Em. I’m not any less _ me _now that I’m doing all this stupid shit. I’m still that girl you first met years ago, still awkward and naive and- Looking for a friend. You,” she mumbles lastly.

She brings her back in. Emily sinks into her body. They fit perfectly, swaying.

“I just- I miss you,” Lindsey whispers. 

Emily leans back, just a little. Just enough to be able to be inches from Lindsey’s facing, gazing up.

“I miss you too,” she says, looking into Lindsey’s eyes. They widen a little bit.

She continues, “I miss us. I miss then, five years ago. But, I don’t know. I was a little bit right. It’s different now. We’re different now. You might not think so but it’s true.”

“Sonny, where are you going with this?” Lindsey asks, but she doesn’t sound worried. She’s smiling with her teeth. Emily laughs, maybe too loud. She feels the eyes of people around them, bringing her back to reality.

“Just wait,” she says, smiling softer. Lindsey rolls her eyes, and Emily feels her heart swoop.

“As I was saying,” she begins irreverently. She catches herself, pauses, and exhales. “I want to put the work in. I want this to line up, make it happen, do something about it. You know. That’s not, like, the best way I can say it but, I don’t know, I-“

“Let’s do it.”

Emily gapes at Lindsey.

“Are you sure?” she asks, feeling her eyebrows furrow, searching Lindsey’s face for any sign. 

_ Of what? _she wonders.

“I should ask you that,” Lindsey says, and she’s smiling but Emily feels her eyes bore into her soul.

“I am,” she says, staring back. “I am.”

Lindsey grins wide with her dimples, eyes shiny and crinkled. “I am, too,” she repeats with the hint of a giggle.

Emily feels herself smile.

“Can I kiss you?” she hears herself ask.

“Stop asking,” Lindsey says. Challenging her. Emily’s heart races.

Emily reaches one of her hands from where they were looped behind Lindsey’s neck to cup her cheek like she was thinking about before. She’s not thinking now. Lindsey’s hands move to her waist as she inhales a little bit, mouth slightly open. Emily glances down at them, then glances back up. Her blue eyes shine with the warm lights of the room.

She closes the distance.

—-

Emily fumbles to switch on the lights. 

It doesn’t hit her that everything really happened until the door slams shut behind her.

It’s all oddly vivid as she lays her eyes on her messy room. 

She remembers that they left early. She doesn’t know why she and Lindsey felt like leaving together, but as Emily hugged Mal after Lindsey, who was giving the shovel talk to Dansby, Mal gave her a little kiss on the cheek, holding her extra tight.

They got their coats. There was some joke about it. In the chilly night outside, Emily tried to get her phone out for an Uber, but Lindsey pushed it down. She drove to the wedding, she offered to drive Emily to her hotel. Emily laughed and said it was no big deal, pushing her hair back. It was in her face with the wind. Lindsey gave her a look and Emily got in and didn’t think about it. Lindsey squeezed her hand once before starting up the car.

She remembers Lindsey pulling up at the hotel. Conversation had quieted, the song on the radio was in the middle of playing, Lindsey turned it down. Emily started to pull on her coat, concentrating on putting her arms in the sleeves slowly. She wasn’t drunk, just a little tipsy, maybe. Clumsy on purpose, probably.

Then Lindsey said, “I don’t mind that we took it slow.”

“Hm?” Emily mumbled. It was out of the blue.

Lindsey still looked straight ahead, even though the car had stopped, fiddling with something in the console, tapping it against the plastic. 

“I don’t mind that we took so long. Feels worth it. I’d always wait, at least a little part of me.”

She turned to Emily then, smiling slightly but eyebrows worried. And Emily felt her heart swoop. 

“Me too,” she whispered insistently, hoping Lindsey understood.

Lindsey nodded like she did, at least. “I know,” she whispered back. If it was brighter outside Emily would’ve thought that she glanced towards her lips. Emily remembers feeling her stomach drop to the floor, turning her head out to the window, chuckling a bit. She still doesn’t know why.

And she specifically remembers how Lindsey said, “This feels familiar.”

“Oh my god.”

“What?” Lindsey was giggling like she always does, like she doesn’t care who hears it or how long it lasts, like she just enjoys laughing. Emily was just trying to get her heart rate down.

“I didn’t expect you to say that!” 

“What, like it’s not true?”

“It is, but-“ Emily trailed off.

“But?” Lindsey raised her eyebrows and all Emily remembers thinking about was how hot Lindsey is.

She somehow managed to say, mouth dry, “I don’t want to move too fast. Again. Scare you off.”

There was a pause. Emily looked out of the window again.

“Jesus, it’s not like we haven’t fucked before. We have. Many times.” 

Emily glanced at Lindsey. She wasn’t exasperated, or mad, or crying. She was smiling, and Emily could see her dimples even in the dark. She couldn’t help but laugh. 

“We kind of did it all backwards,” she exhaled, rubbing her eyes, smiling wryly. It was late.

Lindsey sighed, and she reached over to take Emily’s hand from her eyes and hold it in her own, rubbing circles in it. It was sweet, Emily remembers. Her hands were soft and it made Emily’s heart flutter. Lindsey was chewing her lip, then said, “Look, it’s okay, I can drop you off, I’ll drive home, and we’ll talk tomorrow. Maybe get lunch or something depending on how long you’re here for. Our usual routine, but, you know. Without the-“

Lindsey broke off to gesture wildly with the hand not holding Emily’s. She looked awkward, long legs crooked, her dress, riding up a little to show her thighs, too fancy for the conversation that made Emily feel, well-

Emily felt comfortable.

Maybe it was because she loosened her tie a little, or that her hair wasn’t pulling at her scalp any more. 

Or that Lindsey was rubbing the back of her hand gently with her thumb, over and over again. 

Emily sucked in a breath.

“What if I don’t want that?”

“What do you want?” Lindsey whispered softly. 

“Well, what if you stayed the night in my room?” Emily asked, turning her face up to see Lindsey while grinning slightly.

Lindsey broke out into a smile, bright and beaming, like the streetlights outside.

“Okay.”

The lights flicker on. 

Lindsey kicks off her heels. Emily shakes herself out of it, trying to calm her nerves. She wipes her hands on her pants, feeling her heart start to race at the memory.

“So, this is me,” she says dumbly from the door, watching Lindsey explore her room.

“This is a mess,” Lindsey says with a smile. She kicks at the trashcan a little. “When you said that you were living off of Starbucks, I didn’t expect this much.”

“I wasn’t expecting anyone,” Emily shoots back, taking off her jacket and haphazardly throwing it on the chair next to Lindsey. It crumples onto the floor.

Lindsey steps in her line of sight. She’s strangely close. Strangely tall. “You never are,” she smiles. Her voice is deep. Emily can feel her breath on her face and it makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asks, voice cracking a little. She steps closer to Lindsey. Her legs feel shaky.

Lindsey chuckles, throwing her head back, neck exposed. Emily can’t help but stare, feeling a twist in her stomach. “You’re so blind,” Lindsey whispers.

Emily smiles sheepishly, averting her eyes to the floor. “I know, I know,” she starts to mumble, but then she feels Lindsey’s hand on her cheek, gently turning her face up. She sees a brief flash of Lindsey’s eyes, a clear blue, and then Lindsey’s lips are on hers. Insistent. Tender. 

Emily stumbles a little into her. Lindsey steps back and lets her fall but still holds tight, somehow steady and soft at the same time. She deepens the kiss more. Emily wraps her arms around Lindsey’s waist and keeps moving forwards, stumbling, falling, and Lindsey keeps letting her, until Lindsey hits the bed with the back of her knees and they're toppling sideways, breaking apart. Somehow Emily lands on her back, staring up at the ceiling. She can feel Lindsey lying next to her, breathless. 

She turns on her side. Lindsey does the same.

Emily bursts out laughing. 

Caving in, stomach aching laughter. Lindsey giggles too, head thrown back again, because once somebody else starts, usually Emily, she’s sure to join in, and it’s something that Emily has always liked about her.

“This feels so weird,” tumbles out of her mouth in between deep inhales, rubbing at her eyes.

“Okay, now I have to ask. What does that mean?” Lindsey asks breathily, still giggling. Her eyes are crinkled and kind of squinty but still shine. They’re just inches away.

Emily has to think for a second, struggling to pull a reason out of a hat. Her brain feels impaired. Her heart seems to be working fine, though. It’s pumping way too loud in her ears still as she catches her breath.

“Well,” she starts slowly, “We’re not blackout drunk, for one.”

“Not like we’re completely sober,” Lindsey points out. Emily opens her mouth, reconsiders, and closes it, nodding with admittance.

“What else is weird?” Lindsey props herself up in her elbow. Emily does too.

She considers lying. Lindsey is looking at her with big doe eyes, blue and clear, lips still a little red and wet. Emily’s are chapped. She probably shouldn’t be looking at Lindsey’s lips right now. 

She averts her eyes to the sheets between them. “Just feels, I don’t know. Real,” she mumbles, and with every word it feels like pulling something out of her throat. 

“It was always real.” 

Emily glances back up and Lindsey has a sad smile on her face. Her heart feels like it’s about to burst out of her chest and onto the bed in the small space between them. Maybe if she closes that space, it won’t leap out, she rationalizes, chewing the inside of her cheek. She scoots a little closer to Lindsey now, almost nose to nose. Lindsey takes her hand slowly, enveloping it completely, one finger at a time.

Emily surges forward, capturing Lindsey’s lips with her own. 

Lindsey makes a surprised noise, but Emily feels her smiling into it. Emily smiles back. She moves her hand to interlace their fingers, slotting in almost perfectly. Her knee nudges in between Lindsey’s, foot hooking on her calf. She feels the hem of Lindsey’s dress ride up and the soft skin underneath. She feels Lindsey’s heartbeat against her own chest. It’s warm, constant.

She’s wanted this for so long, she’s dreamt about it so many times, waking up and remembering it's not real. But it is now. She feels surrounded by Lindsey. Her own chest feels like it’s tightening up, squeezing her heart out, and Lindsey tucks a piece of hair behind her ear.

She pulls back. Lindsey furrows her eyebrows. Emily’s stomach lurches as she opens her mouth, and she closes it again. Lindsey’s eyebrows crease a little more.

She’s worried, Emily realizes. 

“I’m so fucking scared,” she exhales.

“Can I tell you something?” 

Lindsey chews at her lip. Emily wants to kiss her, like maybe it’ll make her feel better. The thought hits her like a train. 

“Yeah?” she rasps, trying to focus herself, directly staring into Lindsey’s eyes. It doesn’t help.

Lindsey’s eyes crinkle as she smiles softly. 

“Me too.” 

Emily laughs and it feels like relief, shaking her head, and Lindsey kisses her mouth shut and makes her feel better, lighter, taking her by the shoulders and pushing her back onto the bed. She straddles Emily’s hips, moving to bite at her jaw, her throat. Lindsey pulls at her belt first, then pulls at her collar, loosening it and the tie in one go as if it’s as easy as that, as if Emily hadn’t spent ages getting it as close to right as she can. She bites at the newly exposed skin. All Emily can do is try and regulate her heart rate and breathing, closing her eyes and feeling her whole body flush as Lindsey’s fingers unbutton her shirt deftly. 

She opens them as Lindsey presses a kiss to her shoulder, watches her slipping the sleeves down her arms, letting her fingertips lightly skate down her skin as Lindsey pulls it off fully. Emily sucks in a breath. Lindsey notices, looks up, and smirks.

“You know, I like your hair better when it’s down,” Lindsey says, voice deep and smooth, brushing hair off of Emily’s bare shoulders gently. She tucks some behind her ear once again. 

“Good thing the last hair tie I brought broke, then,” Emily breathes out. “The things I do for you.” 

She’s not sure where it’s supposed to go, it wasn’t really a joke, but Lindsey chuckles softly anyways. Emily notices how her lips still feel dry as she smiles in return, so she licks them and watches Lindsey’s eyes flicker downwards. It sends a rush through her of _ something, _ pooling low in her abdomen _ . _Maybe it’s relief, again.

Lindsey sits up instead, flicking her own hair off her shoulder. Emily pouts a little despite herself, propping herself up on her elbows, trying to catch her breath. Lindsey reaches behind her back to unzip her dress, and Emily traces the line of the muscles in her arms from her elbow, to her shoulder, up her neck, to the second piercing in her ear.

Emily notices herself sitting up fully, until she’s face to face with Lindsey. Until she can see the darker ring around Lindsey’s clear blue eyes, how her pupils are blown out, the red flush on her cheeks, until she can feel Lindsey’s breath on her face, just as fast as hers. 

“Let me.” 

Lindsey nods slowly, as if she’s unsure. Emily isn’t, but her hands shake as she reaches behind and finds the zipper blindly, biting her lip and pulling it down. Lindsey raises her arms and Emily slowly lifts the dress up and over, dropping it gently on the floor.

Lindsey swallows, Emily watches her throat. 

“God, Lindsey, I-“ she says softly. Lindsey’s eyebrows are quirked just a little, mouth slightly parted, face flushed. She’s so close. Her eyes are searching, probing into Emily’s but gently, like she’s asking, _ what is it? _quietly.

There’s so many things that Emily wants to say. 

She wants to tell her that she’s absolutely beautiful. She wants to tell her that she really likes the way she did her hair, loves the little bit of makeup around her eyes. She wants to tell her that she’s so fucking hot, that she looks amazing right now, looks amazing in her Instagram photos and promo shoots, looks amazing all the time. She wants to tell her that she really likes when that second piercing is in.

She wants to tell her that she can’t believe that she’s here, right in front of her, despite how many times she’s seen it before. That she’s sorry, that she would like to make up for everything, that she needs to do this right. She wants to give Lindsey everything she has, and it’s scary that she knows this, that it’s not something new to her. Because nothing changes at all in this moment, not her heart rate, not her breathing. She just smiles and presses a chaste kiss to Lindsey’s cheek. She’s never been so sure. It’s unusual. She’s staring down the face of everything that terrifies her, everything she’s ever wanted.

She wants to tell her that she loves her.

_ I love you, _she thinks, kissing below Lindsey’s ear, below her first piercing, the one with the small gold hoop.

_ I love you, _ she thinks, unclasping Lindsey’s bra, leaning her head down to mouth at her shoulder, her chest, feeling the vibrations from Lindsey’s throat as she places her fingers gently on the inside of her thigh, running up and down.

_ I love you, _she thinks, as Lindsey grips her back, nails with chipping white polish digging into her skin, her head in Emily’s shoulder, her breath causing the hairs on the back of Emily’s neck to stand up.

_ I love you, _she thinks, unburying her head from the pillow, briefly glancing down to Lindsey, before screwing her eyes shut, mouth open in silence.

_ I love you, _she thinks, holding onto Lindsey as tight as she can, because she feels like if she doesn't she’ll float away to the ceiling she’s staring at. She feels a little bit tipsy still. It doesn’t matter much. They’re letting their hearts slow down in sync, beating in unison against each other.

“I love you,” she whispers. 

Lindsey is asleep next to her, breathing deep, curled in towards her. She can’t hear her, or if she can, she makes no movement except the gentle rise and fall of her body.

Emily doesn’t mind. She presses her confession into Lindsey’s hair, watching it blow out of her face and onto the pillow. Lindsey’s lips are turned up a little, like she knows anyways. She always knows, Emily remembers, kissing her forehead. She turns around, lets Lindsey’s arms fall around her waist. Lindsey pulls her in closer, mumbling in her sleep and Emily lets herself feel wanted. She holds onto Lindsey’s forearm, rubbing it with her thumb as she closes her eyes.

She’ll tell it to her tomorrow, in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're done :,)
> 
> let me know what you think in the comments, and enjoy watching sonny play for the first time since march tomorrow!


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